Resource Center Director: Renda Brinson
Located at Union Presbyterian Seminary
5141 Sharon Road, Charlotte, NC in Room C203
NOTES ON NOTABLES FROM YOUR RESOURCE CENTER
We are gearing up for Fall and Advent at the Center and invite all to visit with us. There is some news to note as we enter the fall.
*We have new Children, Youth and Adult Curriculum for the new year and for future planning. You are welcome to come in and browse the samples in the Resource center Tuesday – Friday. If you would like to have the curriculum brought to your church for a meeting of your Education Team, we can arrange that to fit your schedule. Just contact Renda Brinson.
*The Resource Center has 33 copies of the Blue Presbyterian Hymnal for any church that has a need for them. They are in almost new condition. Contact Renda Brinson to arrange pick-up.
RESOURCE CENTER HOURS:
We are open on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons for students and members of the Presbytery to have access to our Resource Center and Library. We will also work with you to get the resources you may need.
If you have questions, please feel free to call Renda Brinson (704-458-0366) to help you decide how we may help you. Contact Renda Brinson, Director of the Presbytery of Charlotte Resource Center at rendab1234@gmail.com if you wish to have items pulled for you to pick up.
Visit our website: www.librarything.com/catalog/CharlotteCRC
New materials will be pictured first, the most recent are in the order of recent purchases. If you ever have any issues with the website, please let me know and I will be glad to help you. We are still working to get electronic check-out – a large project but in our plans. We hope that you will be able in the future to know whether a book is checked out and reserve online.
PRESBYTERY READING GROUP
Questions? Contact Renda Brinson at 704-458-0366
or rendab1234@gmail.com
PRESBYTERY READING GROUP SCHEDULE
Make a plan to join our reading and discussion Book Group now!
All meetings are at 10:00 am in the Resource Center.
Our Presbytery Reading Group is beginning anew this fall. This is a group of avid readers who like to stretch their genres of books, leading us to read fiction and non-fiction. Our discussions are insightful as we share the strengths and weaknesses of characters and plot, what pulled us in or turned us out. The group decides the books to be read and we try to keep a list three months out so you may read ahead when time permits. We invite you to join us each month or just for a particular book that lifts your interest. We adjust November and December meetings for the holidays.
The books for the remainder of the year are as follows:
OUR SEPTEMBER READ:
(Thursday, September 28th)
Child: A Memoir by Judy Goleman
This short book covers some of the history of Rock Hill, SC. Child is the story of Judy Goldman’s relationship with Mattie Culp, the Black woman who worked for her family as a live-in maid and helped raise her―the unconscionable scaffolding on which the relationship was built and the deep love. It is also the story of Mattie’s child, who was left behind to be raised by someone else. Judy, now eighty, cross-examines what it was to be a privileged white child in the Jim Crow South, how a bond can evolve in and out of step with a changing world, and whether we can ever tell the whole truth, even to ourselves. It is an incandescent book of small moments, heart-warming, heartbreaking, and, ultimately, inspiring.
OUR OCTOBER READ:
(Thursday, October 26th)
The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
In her mesmerizing fourth work of fiction, Sue Monk Kidd takes an audacious approach to history and brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman named Ana. Raised in a wealthy family with ties to the ruler of Galilee, she is rebellious and ambitious, with a brilliant mind and a daring spirit. She engages in furtive scholarly pursuits and writes narratives about neglected and silenced women. Ana is expected to marry an older widower, a prospect that horrifies her. An encounter with eighteen-year-old Jesus changes everything.
OUR NOVEMBER READ:
(Date TBD)
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late. Shelby Van Pelt’s debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.
OUR DECEMBER READ:
(Date TBD)
An Odd Cross to Bear by Anne Blue Wills
With this biography we come back to our Charlotte area history. Ruth Bell Graham’s legacy is closely associated with that of her husband, whose career placed her in the public eye throughout her life. But, while it’s true that her identity was significantly shaped by her role in supporting Billy Graham’s ministry, Ruth carried a strong sense of her own agency and was widely influential in her own right, especially in the image she projected of conservative evangelical womanhood—defined by a faith that was deep, private, and nonpolitical.
Beginning prior to Ruth and Billy’s meeting at Wheaton College, Anne Blue Wills chronicles the many formative experiences of Ruth’s life—especially the first decade of her childhood living in a community of American medical missionaries in China. Throughout the biography, Wills focuses not on Ruth’s role in Billy’s life, but on her own interests, ambitions, and fears—as a devoted mother of five, as the fastidious manager of a household, as a devout and well-read Christian, and as a beloved writer and poet.