The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

Renée is the 54 year old concierge in an upscale Paris apartment building, and Paloma is a 12 year old girl living there with her family; they are the voices in which this story is told. What the two have in common is intelligence and the need to play social roles in which they keep their intelligence hidden. Renée's duplicity is somewhat offensive, because she hides behind her role of servant and makes fun of others, thus appearing fearful, small-minded, and arrogant. Paloma is seriously disturbed and planning suicide. Gradually, the residents of the building reveal themselves through interaction, and events lead to opportunities for growth.

There is much display of erudition in The Elegance of the Hedgehog and on the whole this is challenging and interesting. However, it sometimes gets a little too abstruse and even tiresome.

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

Jewish psychiatrist Viktor Frankl (1905-1997) reflects on his experiences in Nazi death camps with a focus on how and why some people did better than others under those extremely stressful conditions. Newcomers to the camps soon became emotionally detached from the horrors they saw every day, the detachment serving as a survival technique. Frankl concludes that people must feel that their lives have meaning, and the meaning differs from person to person as they seek to fulfill the tasks their individual lives set for them.

There are over 12 million copies of Man's Search for Meaning in print worldwide, making it a classic of the 20th century. Besides being insightful and profound, it is also surprisingly readable.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

A young woman writer based in London becomes interested in the World War II experiences of residents of the British Channel island of Guernsey. The story of her growing relationship with them is told in a series of letters. A light fun read.

Eternal Life: A New Vision by John Shelby Spong

In the culmination of a lifetime's spiritual journey, retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong presents his take on what it means to have eternal life. In the process he pretty much tosses out the creeds and dogma of Christianity. I'm sure he would object to my saying "tosses out;" he'd prefer the word "transcends." In his spiritual life he has come to see that God is not separate from his creation but is one with everything, and this makes him a great friend of the Unity movement. While he still clings to the warmth of the Episcopal tradition, he actually says (on p. 202) "Increasingly I saw the church as an organization for the spiritually immature, as a body of children vying for the affirmation of the heavenly parent." And as for eternal life, it's simply that consciousness continues within the greater consciousness. Sounds good to me.

Revelation; The Road to Overcoming by Charles A. Neal

This little book is out of print, but was used as the basis for much discussion in our metaphysics class at church. By looking at the Bible's Book of Revelation metaphysically, one begins to see a little sense behind all those monsters and angels doing impossible things. The horrors represent the mental anguish people go through, and their presentation reinforces the Unity concept that people draw to themselves conditions that accord with the tone of their thinking. As the subtitle suggests, Revelation's message is that by choosing the path that aims towards oneness with God, people can overcome the adversities of human life.

A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry

The trench warfare of WW I jumps vividly alive in this novel about a young Irish soldier. There is an underlying conflict for the Irish who were looking for Home Rule and were in that sense rebelling against England. Nevertheless, a lot of Irishmen enlisted with the British in the war to save Europe from "the Hun." The story's hero, Willie, is only nineteen when he goes off to fight in Belgium and the experiences of his service affect his relationships with his girlfriend and his family. Sad and poignant, A Long Long Way is also poetic and beautifully written.