Picks from August 2007
Coming Out and Disclosure: LGBT Persons Across the Life Span by Ski Hunter
About the author:Ski Hunter, PhD, MSW, is a professor at the School of Social Work, University of Texas at Arlington. Among the courses she teaches is a course on LGBT issues. She has presented numerous workshops on this topic.
Notes on the book:
LGBT persons face multiple challenges when entering the coming out process, regardless of age or place in society. Coming Out and Disclosures: LGBT Persons Across the Life Span is a comprehensive guide to the coming out process for LGBT individuals, how to prepare for disclosure, and how disclosure is received in various groups.
The book examines sexual orientation and identities; developmental models of coming out; disclosure in adolescence, midlife, or later; coming out to parents and family members; and disclosure to non-family. The book also provides practitioners with guidelines for working with clients who want to make disclosures.
A Day Apart: How Jews, Christians and Muslims Find Faith, Freedom and Joy on the Sabbath by Christopher Ringwald
About the author:Christopher D. Ringwald is the author of The Soul of Recovery and a journalist who has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Commonweal and National Catholic Reporter. He is a visiting scholar and directs the Faith and Society Project at The Sage Colleges, in Albany, New York.
Notes on the book:
The Sabbath is the original feast day, a day of joy and freedom from work, a holy day that allows us to reconnect with God, our fellows and nature. Now, in a compelling blend of journalism, scholarship and personal memoir, Christopher D. Ringwald examines the Sabbath from Creation to the present, weaving together the stories of three families, three religions and three thousand years of history.
A Day Apart is the first book to examine the Sabbath in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. A marvelously readable book, it offers a fascinating portrait of the basics of the three Sabbaths--the Muslim Juma on Friday, the Jewish Shabbat on Saturday and the Christian Lord's Day on Sunday--and introduces us to three families, including Ringwald's own, and shows how they observe the holy day and what it means to them.
The heart of the book recounts the history of the Sabbath, ranging from the Creation story and Moses on Mount Sinai, to the teachings of Jesus and Muhammad, the impact of the Protestant Reformation and the Industrial Revolution, and the rise of the modern weekend.
Ringwald shows that the Sabbath instinct, to observe a special day of withdrawal and repose, is universal. Indeed, all religions and philosophies teach that life is more than toil, that time should be set aside for contemplation, enjoyment and culture.
In today's frantic 24/7 world, the Sabbath--a day devoted to rest and contemplation--has never been more necessary. A Day Apart offers a portrait of a truly timeless way to escape the everyday world and add meaning to our lives.
Disclosure by Naomi Alderman
About the author:Naomi Alderman is a graduate of Oxford University and the University of East Anglia's Creative Writing MA and has published award-winning short fiction in a number of anthologies. She has worked as an editor and game designer, and spent several years living in New York. She grew up in the Orthodox Jewish community in Hendon, where she now lives. http://naomialderman.typepad.com
Notes on the book:
Disobedience is Naomi Alderman’s richly told, endearingly evocative tale of two women and the choices they make as they come to terms with their identities in a traditional Orthodox Jewish community. In this groundbreaking debut, Alderman puts her characters to work, forcing them to confront issues of rebellion, isolation, loneliness and self-acceptance in a place where deviating from the norm often results in cold stares and hushed whispers.
Ronit Krushka is a lapsed Orthodox Jew, who fled the confines of Hendon, England and her traditional upbringing for a secular lifestyle on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. When her father, the community’s revered Rabbi passes away, Ronit returns home to retrieve her mother’s precious Shabbat candlesticks, and to revisit her troubled past. She reconnects with Esti, a former lover, whose choices have left her unsure and unfulfilled. As Roni and Esti navigate through the demons of their past, each woman is forced to decide what kind of life she wants to lead, and with whom she wants to share it.
