September's book club selection was The Moment of Lift, by Melinda Gates. Unfortunately, the weather didn't end up cooperating, and we needed to meet via Zoom this month. Thankfully, our attendance (and discussions!) don't seem to suffer no matter the weather, or the venue. Now that we're moving into the colder weather months, I think we can confidently assume that our book club meetings will all be held via Zoom going forward~ if that changes we'll get the word out in a hurry!
Next up for October is Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners, by Gretchen Anthony. Mrs. Anthony will be joining our Zoom discussion on October 13th~ please join in if you can, she's an excellent speaker! There are 9 copies of this title within the Viking system, one of them being a large print edition and another being an E-book. As always, we'll do our very best to get them out to each of you as quickly and efficiently as possible, but in an effort spread the available copies further, if you ever find that you get the chance to snag this, or any future reads, elsewhere, we encourage you to do so!
Speaking of October, now that the Viking Member Libraries, along with MN Link, are back on line, we've decided to forgo distributing both the current month's book club selection and the following month's read in tandem. Instead, we'll revert back to allocating just the current book~ while encouraging those who prefer to read ahead to continue if they'd like.
Without further delay~
For the last twenty
years, Melinda Gates has been on a mission. Her goal has been to find solutions for
people with the most urgent needs, wherever they live. Throughout this
journey, one thing has become increasingly clear to her: If you want to
lift a society up, invest in women. Convinced that all women
should be free to decide whether and when to have children, Gates took
her first step onto the global stage to make a stand for family
planning. That step launched her into further efforts: to ensure women
everywhere have access to every kind of job; to encourage men around the
globe to share equally in the burdens of household work; to advocate
for paid family leave for everyone; to eliminate gender bias in all its
forms.
This book tells of Gates' journey from a partner working behind the scenes to one of the world's foremost advocates for women, driven by the belief that no one should be excluded, all lives have equal value, and gender equity is the lever that lifts everything.
I think it's altogether accurate to say this book was widely enjoyed and praised by the vast majority of our attending members, with the exception of just two. Those in favor of the book liked Mrs. Gates' passionate, relentless work towards empowering, encouraging, and supporting women around the globe~ in whatever form and context that might mean. Several spoke to how they appreciated Mrs. Gates' time and attention to the issues plaguing those less fortunate, and how thoughtful they found her recourse and aid to those areas to be. Being of the Catholic faith, it was also mentioned how seamlessly she appears to balanced her faith right alongside her work with planned parenthood and contraceptives. On the other hand, it was also specifically pointed out that this was found to be a matter of dissatisfaction and reproach~ how could Mrs. Gates belong to both sets of beliefs? In addition, it was said there is an element of assistance missing from her repertoire, that her work felt somewhat more like a bandaid, rather than a solution to the root cause(s). For example, why was there very little mention, if any, of working within these impoverished communities to cultivate jobs, education, faith, and family unity where the very lack of these things was cited as being directly related to the cause of the demise of the populace?
It made for an interesting conversation for sure~ let us know your thoughts below!
At the end of every book club
discussion we ask three questions and track the average answers:
Would we
recommend this to another book club for discussion?
"YES"
Would we
recommend this to a friend to read?
"YES"
Rate the
book 1-4 stars with 1 being the lowest rating:
3.5 stars
