February Book Club -

In recognition of African American (Black) History Month

"Bound for Canaan, The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement" by Fergus M. Bordewich
 

Monday, February 8th at 7PM in Zoom
Email ByberryQuakers@gmail.com for Mtg ID and Password

 

Monday, February 8th at 7PM in Zoom
Email us at ByberryQuakers@gmail.com to get the Meeting ID and Password

An important book of epic scope on America’s first racially integrated, religiously-inspired political movement for change—The Underground Railroad, a movement peopled by daring heroes and heroines, and everyday folk

For most, the mention of the Underground Railroad evokes images of hidden tunnels, midnight rides, and hairsbreadth escapes. Yet the Underground Railroad’s epic story is much more morally complex and politically divisive than even the myths suggest. Against a backdrop of the country’s westward expansion, which brought together Easterners who had engaged in slavery primarily in the abstract alongside slaveholding Southerners and their slaves, arose a clash of values that evolved into a fierce fight for nothing less than the country’s soul. Beginning six decades before the Civil War, freedom-seeking blacks and pious whites worked together to save tens of thousands of lives, often at the risk of great physical danger to themselves. Not since the American Revolution had the country engaged in an act of such vast and profound civil disobedience that not only subverted federal law but also went against prevailing mores.

Flawlessly researched and uncommonly engaging, Bound for Canaan, shows why it was the Underground Railroad and not the Civil Rights movement that gave birth to this country’s first racially-integrated, religiously-inspired movement for social change.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/273541.Bound_for_Canaan


This book is available from many local libraries, both as printed matter, as well as for download to Kindle or ebook, and as an audio book.
 

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January Book Club
 

"Hiking Naked - A Quaker Woman's Search for Balance"
by Iris Graville
 

Monday, January 11th at 7PM in Zoom
Email ByberryQuakers@gmail.com for Mtg ID and Password

 

Monday, January 11th at 7PM in Zoom
Email us at ByberryQuakers@gmail.com to get the Meeting ID and Password

Nautilus Book Award Winner

"Knocked off her feet after twenty years in public health nursing, Iris Graville quit her job and convinced her husband and their thirteen-year-old twin son and daughter to move to Stehekin, a remote mountain village in Washington State’s North Cascades. They sought adventure; she yearned for the quiet and respite of this community of eighty-five residents accessible only by boat, float plane, or hiking.

Hiking Naked chronicles Graville’s journey through questions about work and calling as well as how she coped with ordering groceries by mail, black bears outside her kitchen window, a forest fire that threatened the valley, and a flood that left her and her family stranded for three days".

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/35997950-hiking-naked
 

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December Book Club & Author Discussion:
"A Lenape among the Quakers: 
The Life of Hannah Freeman" 

 

Email us at ByberryQuakers@gmail.com to get the Meeting ID and Password

We are excited to have the author, Dawn Marsh, joining us for this interesting (and equally unsettling) story of Hannah Freeman, a Lenape woman who "on July 28, 1797... stood before the newly appointed almsman of Pennsylvania’s Chester County and delivered a brief account of her life. In a sad irony, Hannah Freeman was establishing her residency—a claim that paved the way for her removal to the poorhouse. Ultimately, however, it meant the final removal from the ancestral land she had so tenaciously maintained. Thus was William Penn’s “peaceable kingdom” preserved. 

A Lenape among the Quakers reconstructs Hannah Freeman’s history, traveling from the days of her grandmothers before European settlement to the beginning of the nineteenth century. The story that emerges is one of persistence and resilience, as “Indian Hannah” negotiates life with the Quaker neighbors who employ her, entrust their children to her, seek out her healing skills, and, when she is weakened by sickness and age, care for her. And yet these are the same neighbors whose families have dispossessed hers. Fascinating in its own right, Hannah Freeman’s life is also remarkable for its unique view of a Native American woman in a colonial community during a time of dramatic transformation and upheaval. In particular it expands our understanding of colonial history and the Native experience that history often renders silent.

 

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November Book Club
"The Witch's Advocate" 

 

Email us at ByberryQuakers@gmail.com to get the Meeting ID and Password

Join us for an interesting (and equally disturbing) journey back to the life of Thomas Maule.


Whipped and imprisoned multiple times, Maule was tried in 1696, and his acquittal is considered a pivotal event leading to the adoption of the First Amendment.


From GoodReads:   "The Amazing True Story of the Quaker Who Stood With Salem's Witches.

The Puritans said the witch madness was over. Salem was once again the City of Peace. But everyone knew nothing had changed. The hangings may have stopped, but the town still trembled under a cloud of suspicion, oppression, and fear. Just when it seemed no one would be bold enough to challenge Salem’s leaders, Thomas Maule raised his voice.

The angry Puritans took him to trial, certain that the loudmouth Quaker would be easily suppressed. What they didn’t know was they were taking on an extraordinary man at an extraordinary time. Maule bravely stood up for the rights of the witches and all the others who could not speak for themselves. In a trial meant to vindicate the Puritan Theocracy, one man spoke up for the freedoms America would come to cherish. In The Witch’s Advocate, acclaimed author Richard Maule, brings this true but untold story to life. Maule’s previous novel, Moonlight Helmsman, has received eight national awards for historical fiction, with Kirkus Reviews calling it “a seamless weave of historical investigation and fictional drama.” The Witch’s Advocate takes us back to another tumultuous period in our history in a spellbinding tale of danger and suspense that draws the reader towards one of the best courtroom climaxes ever."

About Richard Maule:
Richard Maule was born in Miami, Florida. After a 40+ year career in Christian ministry, counseling, and public speaking, he retired to New London, CT to write historical novels. His first book, Moonlight Helmsman (2017), received critical praise and 8 national awards for historical fiction. His most recent book, The Witch’s Advocate (2019) has already received 4 national honors, including the 2020 Beverly Hills Book Award. Richard is enjoying his new life as an author. He especially likes doing historical research, meeting interesting people, and raising money for good causes. His novels have generated profits of over $70,000, all of which has been donated to worthwhile charities in New England.
 

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October Book Club (and Author Discussion)      

 

We are especially excited about the upcoming Zoom Book Club Discussion on Monday, October 12th when we will be discussing "The Movement of Stars" by, and with, Amy Brill, the author.  
 

                

“Gorgeous . . . Sings with insights about love, work and how we create our own families”—Oprah.com


Email us to get the login Zoom Room ID/Password.  We will respond with the link on the 12th.

 

The book club selection for October is "The Movement of Stars" by Amy Brill.

"It is 1845, and Hannah Gardner Price has lived all twenty-four years of her life according to the principles of the Nantucket Quaker community in which she was raised, where simplicity and restraint are valued above all, and a woman’s path is expected to lead to marriage and motherhood. But up on the rooftop each night, Hannah pursues a very different—and elusive—goal: discovering a comet and thereby winning a gold medal awarded by the King of Denmark, something unheard of for a woman.

And then she meets Isaac Martin, a young, dark-skinned whaler from the Azores who, like herself, has ambitions beyond his expected station in life. Drawn to his intellectual curiosity and honest manner, Hannah agrees to take Isaac on as a student. But when their shared interest in the stars develops into something deeper, Hannah’s standing in the community begins to unravel, challenging her most fundamental beliefs about work and love, and ultimately changing the course of her life forever.

Inspired by the work of Maria Mitchell, the first professional female astronomer in America, The Movement of Stars is a richly drawn portrait of desire and ambition in the face of adversity."

 

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September Book Club         

 

We are especially excited about the upcoming Zoom Book Club Discussion on Monday, September 14th when we will be discussing Quakerism; Horsham Friends Meeting; the French-Indian War; and many other topics about life in greater Philadelphia in the 1750s, all with Christy Distler, the author of "A Cord of Three Strands".

Email us to get the login Zoom Room ID/Password.  We will respond with the link on the 14th.

 

The book club selection for September is "A Cord of Three Strands" by Christy Distler (a local Warrington author).



"As the French and Indian War rages, one man strives for peace - between Pennsylvania and its Indian tribes, and between his own heart and mind."
 

A Cord of Three Strands
 

Born to a French trader and a Lenape woman. Reared by Quakers. As the French & Indian War rages, one man strives for peace—between Pennsylvania and its Indian tribes, and between his own heart and mind.

As 1756 dawns, Isaac Lukens leaves the Pennsylvania wilderness after two years with the Lenape people. He’s failed to find the families of his birth parents, a French trader and a Lenape woman. Worse, the tribe he’s lived with, having rejected his peacemaking efforts, now ravages frontier settlements in retaliation. When he arrives in the Quaker community where he was reared, questions taunt him: Who is he—white man or Lenape? And where does he belong?

Elisabeth Alden, Isaac’s dearest childhood friend, is left to tend her young siblings alone upon her father’s death. Despite Isaac’s promise to care for her and the children, she battles resentment toward him for having left, while an unspeakable tragedy and her discordant courtship with a prominent Philadelphian weigh on her as well.

Elisabeth must marry or lose guardianship of her siblings, and her options threaten the life with her and the children that Isaac has come to love. Faced with Elisabeth’s hesitancy to marry, the prospect of finding his family at last, and the opportunity to assist in the peace process between Pennsylvania and its Indian tribes, Isaac must determine where—and to whom—the Almighty has called him.

A Cord of Three Strands weaves fact and fiction into a captivating portrayal of Colonial-era Quaker life, including Friends’ roles in Pennsylvania Indian relations and in refuting slavery.

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