Good Shepherd Book Group

All are Welcome to the First Thursday Book Group, meeting the first (sometimes second) Thursday of each month, 7:00-8:30 p.m. in the Good Shepherd Library. Come enjoy open and caring conversation and the exchange of ideas!

Interested in getting on the email list and/or have any questions? Contact Tim Curry.

About the Book Group

From its beginnings over ten years ago as The Rector's Book Club to its current incarnation as The First Thursday Book Group, the group has taken as its focus the idea that the best literature makes us examine the deep questions of being human. The books chosen for discussion need not be theological or explicitly religious in nature, but are generally contemporary books of significance that may become classics, or works that have been acknowledged as classics such as George Eliot's Middlemarch, Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, or Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit.

We have read and discussed contemporary works as varied as John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany, Kent Haruf's Our Souls at Night, and Thomas Merton's autobiographical Seven Storey Mountain. We've also read and discussed works of poetry such as Seamus Haney's The Spirit Level and Mary Oliver's Thirst. 

Group members nominate books for each year and lead the discussions. In some cases, we have been fortunate to have authors visit and discuss their work with us. We also participate in the Kentucky Reads program with the discussion led by a visiting scholar from the Kentucky Humanities Council. 

2024-2025 Reading Schedule

  • book group

    September 12

    "The Last Chronicle of Barset" by Anthony Trollope

    Discussion led by Mike Noyes

    Purchase a copy
  • book group

    October 3

    "Scissors, Paper, Rock" by Fenton Johnson

    Discussion led by Richard Taylor (KY Humanities Speaker)

    Purchase a copy
  • book group

    November 7

    "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" by Anne Brontë

    Discussion led by Cathy Penberthy

    Purchase a copy
  • book group

    December 5

    "The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store" by James MacBride

    Discussion led by Jane Livingston

    Purchase a copy
  • book group

    January 9

    "Fidelity: Five Stories" by Wendell Berry

    Discussion led by Morris Grubbs

    Purchase a copy
  • book group

    February 6

    "Nicholas Nickleby" by Charles Dickens

    Discussion led by Tim Curry

    Purchase a copy
  • book group

    March 13

    "The March" by E.L. Doctorow

    Discussion led by Richard LeComte

    Purchase a copy
  • book group

    April 3

    "Listen to me" by Hannah Pittard

    Discussion led by Hannah Pittard

    Purchase a copy

  • May 1

    "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Anderson

    Discussion led by Marilla Scudder-Davis

    Purchase a copy