The yearly fraction

Another year and another quarter!

Last quarter we had the opportunity to read 4 fantastic books !

Read my review of each one here:

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

All The Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld

All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience by Neal A. Maxwell





This quarter the books for book club are as follows:

Non-Fiction

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell; shortly afterwards the two Germanies reunited, and East Germany ceased to exist. In a country where the headquarters of the secret police can become a museum literally overnight, and one in 50 East Germans were informing on their countrymen and women, there are a thousand stories just waiting to get out. Anna Funder tells extraordinary tales from the underbelly of the former East Germany - she meets Miriam, who as a 16-year-old might have started World War III, visits the man who painted the line which became the Berlin Wall and gets drunk with the legendary "Mik Jegger" of the East, once declared by the authorities to his face to "no longer to exist".

Classic

Oscar Wilde's tale of a Faustian pact in Victorian England, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" is a both a slow-burning Gothic horror and a brilliant philosophical investigation of youth, beauty and desire. Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life; indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" was a succes de scandale. Early readers were shocked by its hints at unspeakable sins, and the book was later used as evidence against Wilde at the Old Bailey in 1895.

Fiction

Ninety-five days, and then I'll be safe. I wonder whether the procedure will hurt. I want to get it over with. It's hard to be patient. It's hard not to be afraid while I'm still uncured, though so far the deliria hasn't touched me yet. Still, I worry. They say that in the old days, love drove people to madness. The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't.

They say that the cure for love will make me happy and safe forever. And I've always believed them. Until now. Now everything has changed. Now, I'd rather be infected with love for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years suffocated by a lie. There was a time when love was the most important thing in the world. People would go to the end of the earth to find it. They would tell lies for it. Even kill for it.

Spiritual

Twice in the final years of his life, Elder Neal A. Maxwell told a grandson of Henry Eyring's, "You need to write your grandfather's story."

This is that story of Henry Eyring, perhaps the Church's most acclaimed scientist. It is a book about science and Mormonism, written to be easily understood by newcomers to both subjects. It demonstrates why one of the Church's highest-profile intellectuals was also one of its humblest believers. In fact, this story of Henry Eyring shows how intellect and belief go hand-in-hand and how simple, faithful people can change the world.