Quaker Book Club

Zoom Book Club - Quaker Reading

Byberry Meeting is sponsoring a Zoom book club with books that have Quaker themes. Below is their invitation. This a good way to learn about why Quakers are Quakers.

Join us as we explore some novels, historical fiction and related storylines (not all fictional) that include a Quaker component. All are welcome, just send an email to ByberryQuakers@gmail.com requesting the log-in to the bookclub.

The Bookclub will meet on the 2nd Monday of each month. Our first meeting will be May 11th at 7.00PM.]

The first selection is: "The Last Runaway" by Tracy Chevalier. Chevalier sprang to fame with "The Girl with the Pearl Earring", and has written 10 other best-sellers since that first novel. "Tracy Chevalier makes her first fictional foray into the American past in The Last Runaway, bringing to life the Underground Railroad and illuminating the principles, passions and realities that fueled this extraordinary freedom movement" (Source: Goodreads.com). Honor Bright, a modest English Quaker, moves to Ohio in 1850-only to find herself alienated and alone in a strange land. Sick from the moment she leaves England, and fleeing personal disappointment, she is forced by family tragedy to rely on strangers in a harsh, unfamiliar landscape. Nineteenth-century America is practical, precarious, and unsentimental, and scarred by the continuing injustice of slavery. In her new home Honor discovers that principles count for little, even within a religious community meant to be committed to human equality. However, Honor is drawn into the clandestine activities of the Underground Railroad, a network helping runaway slaves escape to freedom, where she befriends two surprising women who embody the remarkable power of defiance. Eventually she must decide if she too can act on what she believes in, whatever the personal costs.

Some discussion points may come from this link on her website --

https://www.tchevalier.com/reading-group-guide