February Reading Group Selection

I'm a little late on this one, and I apologize. Actually a sweet reader let me know I forgot to post our February selection (you'd think I could at least get the first two months of the year right). We are finishing up discussion of You Are What You Love in the Facebook group, and we voted to read this novel for February:

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

Here's a preview of the story:

Jayber Crow, born in Goforth, Kentucky, orphaned at age ten, began his search as a "pre-ministerial student" at Pigeonville College. There, freedom met with new burdens and a young man needed more than a mirror to find himself. But the beginning of that finding was a short conversation with "Old Grit," his profound professor of New Testament Greek. "You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out—perhaps a little at a time."
"And how long is that going to take?"
"I don't know. As long as you live, perhaps."
"That could be a long time."
"I will tell you a further mystery," he said. "It may take longer."

Eventually, after the flood of 1937, Jayber becomes the barber of the small community of Port William, Kentucky. From behind that barber chair he lives out the questions that drove him from seminary and begins to accept the gifts of community that enclose his answers. The chair gives him a perfect perch from which to listen, to talk, and to see, as life spends itself all around. In this novel full of remarkable characters, he tells his story that becomes the story of his town and its transcendent membership.

If you want to join us in the Facebook group here, we'd love to have you! Or feel free to read along and write your reflections in the comments or on your own blog. 

I will have a post on January's book next week, hopefully. I'm still processing some of it, but it's been encouraging and challenging, and a great way to start the year.