1stUUPB’s Second Saturday
Book Group
2024-2025 Season

Theme: At a Crossroad

As our Second Saturday Book Group Planning Team began discussing possible books for the upcoming 2024-2025 season, the theme of crossroads kept coming up.

We have all found ourselves at crossroads at various times in our lives. Times when the path taken (as well as not taken) have had a lasting impact on the direction of our lives. Of course, the upcoming election represents a huge and top of mind crossroads for the United States.

We recently witnessed President Biden struggle with, what was likely, the most major crossroad of his political career. However (and thankfully) most of our own decisions do not play out on such a public stage.

What is it we bring to bear in making the decisions that propel us forward? What do we consider or ignore in tallying up the risks and benefits of choosing our path? Intuition? Peer pressure? Advice? Research? Past experiences? The impact on those around us? When factors outside our control knock us off course, how do we bring our lives back into balance?

Our paths are as individual and unique as are we.  Some lead to empowerment and satisfaction, while others lead to regret and despair.  What makes one path desirable for one, would never be considered by another.  We arrive at some crossroads with intentionality, some are thrust upon us.

The books we offer this season deal with experiences that place our protagonists at some difficult and fascinating crossroads and how their lives unfold from the actions they take: Finding one’s place in the world after wartime military service; adapting to life after banishment from one’s home and homeland; the challenges and opportunities of a diverse and divided community learning to live together;  finding out that one’s future will be determined by other parties; the role that time and place play in the paths of our lives; and the death of one’s life partner.

Please join us on this season’s reading journey as we reflect on the decisions made at the crossroads of life.

All sessions are from 10:00 a.m. to noon.

November 9th (Zoom): The Women (Kristin Hannah) (480 pages)

December 14th (Zoom): North Woods (Daniel Mason) (384 pages)

January 11th (In person): Matrix (Lauren Groff) (288 pages)

February 8th (In person): James (Percival Everett) (320 pages)

March 8th (In person): The Year of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion) (227 pages)

April 12th (In person): The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store (James McBride) (400 pages)

Nov and Dec Zoom sessions – use the “Other Meetings” link on the 1stUUPB website.

The In-Person sessions will be in the Sanctuary only (not hybrid).

For more information or questions contact Steve Pock at srpock@mac.com.

Your Planning Group:  Lauren Furst, Dorie Maxwell, Steve Pock, Nancy Stone