Please Come Along and Read With Us!

Kym has come up with a great idea, and I'm here (along with Kym and Carole) to help announce this idea - a virtual "bloggy book club" called Read With Us!

So many of us are readers and share the books we've read on our blogs, goodreads, and in comments. But there is still something missing - the chance to actually engage in book discussions with each other, gain new viewpoints, and maybe even learn a thing or two. It's our hope that this virtual book club will provide some of those additional things and bring even more enjoyment and understanding to reading for all of us.

So how does this work in general? The book club will take place on our three blogs, with the discussion happening in the comments. We will read one book quarterly, with some introductory, promotional, and informational posts from us, followed by the actual discussion posts, breaking the book up into manageable parts so you'll have plenty of time to read. There is no need to sign up to join; just read along and participate in the discussions. 

Here is a rough timeline so you have a better idea about specifics. All of us are introducing Read With Us along with this quarter's book selection today. On subsequent Tuesdays in October, we'll each do a promotional post with more information about the book, details about how to participate, and what to expect in terms of discussion questions. On Tuesday, November 5, we'll start the discussion of the first third of the book, followed by two more discussion posts on subsequent Tuesdays in November. At the end of the month, there will be a summary, then we'll announce the next book we're reading, and we start all over again for the next quarter. This is a "beta" run to see how things go, and we would definitely welcome your feedback along the way.

By now you're probably thinking "Enough! Tell me about the book already!" It's Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson. I know several of you have already read and enjoyed it, and there is even a goodreads giveaway for the book, open until September 30. It's a timely, relevant recounting of the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit founded by lawyer Bryan Stevenson. The EJI is a law office in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated to defending the poor, the incarcerated, and the wrongly condemned.

"EJI is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, challenging racial and economic injustice, and protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society." 

I think this will be an incredibly worthwhile, important, and eye-opening book for all of us, to better understand justice, injustice, punishment, and redemption. So please come along and Read With Us!