Thank you for being patient with me in my slow start to this year's Apostles Reads! I am taking a little inspiration from the Trinity Forum's Bookclub series Work, Rest, and Play for a theme this year. We'll read a couple of the titles they recommend and add a few of our own, starting with the novel My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok, which is beloved by so many artists of faith I've read the past few decades. For fun, pair it with the brief essay Painting as a Pastime by Winston Churchill. (available through Trinity Forum)
Asher Lev is a Ladover Hasid who keeps kosher, prays three times a day and believes in the Ribbono Shel Olom, the Master of the Universe. He grows up in a cloistered Hasidic community in postwar Brooklyn, a world suffused by ritual and revolving around a charismatic Rebbe. He is torn between two identities, the one consecrated to God, the other devoted only to art and his imagination, and in time, his artistic gift threatens to estrange him from that world and the parents he adores.
As it follows his struggle, My Name Is Asher Lev becomes a luminous, visionary portrait of the artist, by turns heartbreaking and exultant.
I have wanted to read this together since we moved to Connecticut, and I am glad it's finally the time!
Details for our next book discussion
M A Y 18
What: My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok + Painting as a Pastime by Winston Churchill.
When: Sunday, May 18, 4-6 p.m.
Where: Location TBD
RSVP and please bring a snack to share: tamarahillmurphy@gmail.com
As we read about work, rest, and play this year, I hope we'll have opportunities to encourage each other in our daily creative and vocational pursuits. More on that as we go, but here's what we'll read together this year.
2025 Reading List with discussion dates
Please know that while I've done my best, changes to dates or titles may need to be made as we approach each one.
All Ordinary Time: Faster Than Light: New and Selected Poemsby Marilynne Nelson, the former Poet Laureate of Connecticut (We'll reflect on a portion of the poems each time we meet during Ordinary Time.)
August 10: All Ages Book Swap (Over the summer, we'll invite Apostles kids and youth to recommend some of their favorite reads, and we'll invite them to read some of our favorite reads from our childhoods and then get together to talk about them!
September 21 or 28: Why Work? By Dorothy Sayers
November 16: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (read the entire book or the abridged version from Trinity Forum)