It's A New Book!

We're thrilled to announce the Read With Us winter selection: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. First published in 2004, it has won multiple awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and many others. 

Some novels don’t just tell a story, they also create a space for reflection. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson is one of those rare books that is quiet on the surface, yet vast in what it asks of us as readers.

Told as a letter from Reverend John Ames to his young son, Gilead unfolds in a small Iowa town in the 1950s. Ames knows he will not live to see his son grow up, and so he writes with tenderness and humility about faith, doubt, forgiveness, race, history, and the everyday beauty of a life lived attentively. What emerges is not a conventional plot-driven novel, but a deeply human meditation on what it means to love the world, despite its brokenness. I could certainly use this and that may be true for many others as well. 

This is a book that rewards slow reading. Robinson’s prose is luminous without being showy, grounded in ordinary moments that open into something larger such as a shared meal or a difficult conversation left unfinished. Readers may find themselves pausing, not because the book is difficult, but because it is quietly profound.

I think Gilead will offer us opportunities for a rich and layered discussion. Gilead is also a novel that invites many kinds of readers in. You do not need to share its religious framework to be moved by its questions or its compassion. At its heart, this is a book about attention, moral responsibility, and the grace found in ordinary lives.

Kym, Carole, and I will be talking about the book, giving additional information, and doing promotional posts throughout February. Discussion day for Gilead is scheduled for Tuesday, March 17, 2026 at 7:00 pm Eastern time, so mark your calendars. We'll ask questions on our blogs that day and then host the always educational and illuminating Zoom discussion.  

Whether you've read it before or this book is new to you, we hope you'll Read With Us and discover this quietly reflective novel.