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Bookin’
It’s Spirituality Book Discussion Group
- The Spirituality Book Discussion
Group (SBDG) meets on the first Thursday of
the month from October through May at 6:30 p.m.
at Bookin’ It. (If the first Thursday
is a holiday, the group meets on the second
Thursday).
- Members receive a 10% discount
on the selected books.
- Maryjude Hoeffel, Bookin’
It’s SBDG Coordinator, selects the titles
based on input from group members and her own
reading. Books chosen reflect ideas from many
wisdom traditions including Buddhism, Christianity,
Judaism, and others. In nearly all cases, selections
are softcover editions.
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for close up view
The Spirituality Discussion Group
Reading List for 2007-2008

Oct 4, 2007
The Mandala of Being by Richard Moss, MD
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Nov 1, 2007
Yearnings by Rabbi Irwin Kula |

Dec 6, 2007
Tools Matter for Practicing the Spiritual
Life by Mary Margaret Funk
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Jan 3, 2008
Pine Island Paradox by Kathleen Dean Moore |
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Feb 7, 2008
The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness - Preparing
to Practice by Rabbi Rami Shapiro
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March 6,
2008
Jesus Today by Albert Nolan |

April
3, 2008
The Extra-Ordinary Healing Power of Ordinary
Things by Larry Dossey, MD
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May
1, 2008
A New Earth - Awakening
to Your Life's Purpose
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The Mandala of Being
by Richard Moss, MD
In these pages, Richard Moss
gives us an effective practice that is readily
incorporated into day-to-day life. It illustrates
that there are...only four places our minds ever
go when we leave the Now - the past, the future,
judgements of ourselves and judgements of others.
It allows us to trace precisely the path we have
taken away from our most authentic and essential
being...and simultaneously shows us the way home.
Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness
of Life by Rabbi Irwin Kula
The traditions of Jewish wisdom
and religion hold answers to life??'s deepest
questions. In this, his first book, Rabbi Kula
mines those traditions to offer pragmatic insights
into how to live hopefully and richly with the
uncertainty, complexity, and fear that come with
21st century life. A new way of thinking about
religion and spirituality that is neither New
Age nor fundamentalist, "Yearnings "embraces
the contradictions of modern experience???what
Rabbi Kula calls the ???sacred messiness of life??????and
explores the desire to reconcile the conflict
between the unscripted course of our lives and
our desire for certainty. "Yearnings "takes
the reader on an excursion into the depths of
ancient Jewish tradition, drawing parallels between
today??'s experiences and the ancient stories
of the Bible. A hopeful book for troubled times.
A BEST SPIRITUALITY BOOK OF 2006
Tools Matter
for Practicing the Spiritual Life by Mary Margaret
Funk
Funk turns to the wisdom of
the desert fathers for the means of removing obstacles
to spiritual growth, which include thoughts of
food, sex, possessions, anger, dejection, and
pride, among other preoccupations. Drawing on
the writings of the fifth-century monk John Cassian,
Funk goes on to explore deeply using such tools
as memory, imagination, and rational thinking--tools
right out of early Christianity--to work on inner
healing. She also explains how other positive
tools, such as ceaseless prayer, manual labor,
and isolation, may lead to uncluttering the mind
and purifying the heart.
The Pine Island
Paradox by Kathleen Dean Moore
Can the love reserved for family
and friends be extended to a place? In her latest
book, acclaimed author Kathleen Dean Moore reflects
on how deeply the environment is entrenched in
the human spirit, despite the notion that nature
and humans are somehow separate. Moore's essays,
deeply felt and often funny, make connections
in what can appear to be a disconnected world.
Written in parable form, her stories of family
and friends ...affirm an impulse of caring that
belies the abstract division of humans from nature,
of the sacred from the mundane. Underlying these
wonderfully engaging stories is the author's belief
in a new ecological ethic of care, one that expands
the idea of community to include the environment,
and embraces the land as family.
The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness
- Preparing to Practice by Rabbi Rami Shapiro
With his energy, enthusiasm,
and interfaith perspective, Rabbi Rami Shapiro
offers us an invaluable gift in this inspiring
and enlightening work. He bases his presentation
on Judaism's Thirteen Attributes of Lovingkindness
and broadens it with the wisdom of other religions,
then illustrates each point by suggesting concrete
spiritual practices we can do in daily life.
A BEST SPIRITUALITY BOOK OF 2006
Jesus Today - A Spirituality
of Radical Freedom by Albert Nolan
Thirty years
ago Albert Nolan wrote Jesus Before Christianity,
a classic about the political context of Jesus'
mission. In this stirring paperback, he looks
at Jesus' spirituality and its relevance to our
times. The author is a Dominican priest from South
Africa. He outlines the signs of our times
the hunger for spirituality, the crisis of individualism,
globalization, and developments in science after
Einstein to accentuate why we need the
radical freedom of Jesus.
A BEST SPIRITUAL BOOK OF 2006
The Extra-Ordinary
Healing Power of Ordinary Things by Larry Dossey,
MD
On a Dr. Larry Dossey, who
often looks at the interface between medicine,
consciousness, and spirituality, is entranced
by simple, ordinary health interventions that
we often take for granted. He salutes optimism,
tears, doing nothing, and miracles. And he calls
for a truce in the war against dirt. A
BEST SPIRITUAL BOOK OF 2006
A New Earth - Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
by Eckhart Tolle
It's been several years since
we read a book by Eckhart Tolle, so I thought
that the time was right. Don't let the fact that
this title was recently selected as an Oprah pick
deter you; I think you'll find his insights echo
many of the great Wisdom masters - that to live
in a way that reflects our True Nature, we must
move from an ego-centric existence to one that
springs from a very different consciousness.
If you have any questions
or comments, please call me at Bookin’ It,
320-632-1848 or toll-free: 1-800-809-1848, or
e-mail me at book@integra.net
Maryjude
Summer 2007 This group took year
off
For more information
on the RTW Program that was the inspiration for
our own Reading the World Book Club and for a
list of the 2007 titles; go to the link shown.
http://www.readingtheworld.org/index.html
Summer 2008 Tales of Immigration
This summer we will be
reading three tales of immigration. They bring
us into the world of overriding hope, displacement,
disappointment, risk and reward. And we find that
not everyone who dreams of crossing borders to
a better life is dreaming of America. .
We're meeting this summer on the
third Wednesday of June, July and August at 6:30
PM..
June
18, 2008 Hope
and Other Dangerous Pursuits by Laila Lalami
($13.00, October 2006, 188 pages)
July 16, 2008 Across
a Hundred Mountains by Reyna Grande ($13.00,
May 2007, 266 pages)
August 20, 2008 The
Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw
Mengestu ($14.00, Feb 2008, 228 pages)
 
Great River Writers
- The Great River Writers (GRW)
have a new meeting schedule as of June 2008.
We meet on the first Tuesday of the month at
the Carnegie Library in Little Falls from 6:30
to 8:00 P.M. You can find us in the Lindbergh
Room at the north corner of the periodical section.
We encourage you to call Laura at Bookin' It
for an update if you are planning to attend
for the first time. Her number is 320-632-1848.
- No books are required for this
group, but members generally bring several original
poems or pages of prose to read aloud. Other
times, we may do wiritng exercises or share
information on submissions.
- The GRW was formed over six years
ago and many of the current members have been
continuously active in the group. The group
serves to bring new and practicing writers together
to support, encourage and critique their work.
New members are welcome.
- Great River Writers hosts an
Annual Anniversary Reading each YEAR.
Group members share their work with an audience
at the Great River Arts Center. The 2008 reading
is tentaively being planned for October at the
Great River Arts Association Art Center in downtown
Little Falls and may feature guest readers from
the Otter Tail Review.. Last year's May 2007
performance can be viewed periodically on our
local access channel TV6.
- For more
information on The Great River Writers, call
Laura at 320-632-1848 or 800-809-1848 or . Click the
link below to review a January 2004 St Cloud
Times article about the Great Rivers Writers.
http://www.sctimes.com/archived/bookinit.html
Click
for close up view
Great
River Writers

Talking Volumes Book
Club
- Talking Volumes is a regional
book club created through a partnership with
The Loft Literary Center, The Minneapolis Star
Tribune, and Minnesota Public Radio.
- Bookin' It is a Talking Volumes
affiliate which means we stock the selected
books, and other books by the featured authors.
We offer these titles at a discount and make
available to you materials such as bookmarks
and reader's guides specifically designed for
the Talking Volumes events.
- You can share the Talking Volumes
experiences at free public events at The Loft
and at The Fitzgerald Theatre, by tuning into
MPR to hear discussions with the author, or
by going online at the Star Tribune Talking
Volumes. www.Startribune.com/talkingvolumes.
Your Book Club
- Are you already in an established
book club or have an idea for one but don't
know how to start? Let the friendly staff at
Bookin' It help. Here's what we can do for you:
- Any existing book group ordering
five books or more can qualify for our regular
10% book club discounts. Just call us and have
us check the availablity and price of your selection.
- You can post your book club notices
here at the store or on our website making it
easier for potential new members to find out
who you are and where and when you meet.
- You can come to us for recommendations
of well-written, highly discussable books. We
have many resources availalbe for book clubs
including ideas on how to begin a new club,
re-energize an existing club, and how to get
great discussion value from every book selected.
now to let us know how we can
be of service to your book club.
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