The Humanist Fellowship of San Diego

Book Club

Unless otherwise noted, the book club will meet on the third Thursday of every month.
You must confirm your attendance and call for the location of the meeting, as it may change from month-to-month depending upon the participants.

JULY BOOK CLUB SELECTION

Salvation Boulevard

by Larry Beinhart

[Review adapted from the website "Nations Review"]

From the Edgar Award-winning novelist and author of Wag the Dog and The Librarian comes a new mystery novel about a private investigator and a case that tests his courage, character and soul. The victim is an atheist professor, the main suspect—who has confessed and is in custody—a Muslim foreign student, the defense attorney a Jew and the detective a born-again Christian.

As P.I. Carl Van Wagener gets deeper and deeper into the investigation of the death of Professor Nathaniel MacLeod, his most basic beliefs and relationships are tried and his world is turned upside down.

Salvation Boulevard is a page-turning thriller in the tradition of John Grisham and Richard Condon that grapples with the ecstatic and entropic nature of religious faith in contemporary America.

Book Reviews:

"Larry Beinhart's Salvation Boulevard, like his Wag The Dog and The Librarian, is a wild ride indeed. Intelligent, provocative, often outrageous, it pits a tough ex-cop turned born-again PI against what only looks like innocence, covering a dark world of power and treachery and deceit. It will grip you, first page to last." —Donald Westlake

"In Orwellian times, fiction is often the only way to get the truth out. We are approaching such times in the United States, and Larry Beinhart masterfully alerts us to what depths our government has sunk. Salvation Boulevard is a quick paced and heart wrenching call to arms against the excesses our government has foisted upon 'we the people.'" —Ambassador Joseph Wilson

"Salvation Boulevard is dramatic and highly provocative. Larry Beinhart expertly crafts a tempestuous philosophical personal drama that will unquestionably motivate intense discussion, debate and critical thinking. Read Salvation Boulevard and you will be consumed in a thought-provoking whirlwind." -- Robert K. Tanenbaum

About the author:

Larry Beinhart is an award-winning novelist who lives in Woodstock, New York. He is the author of Wag the Dog and last year's acclaimed novel The Librarian. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. He was the Raymond Chandler Fulbright Scholar at Oxford University. He is a regularly featured blogger on The Huffington Post. He currently lives in Woodstock, New York with his wife and two children.

JUNE BOOK CLUB SELECTION

The Humanist Tradition in the West

by Sir Alan Bullock

Vice Chancellor of Oxford University and a Fellow of the British Academy

Humanism is universally recognized as one of the most basic concepts in the development of Western civilization, and yet the meaning of the term itself is far from clear. By following an historical rather than an analytical approach, the author demonstrates that it is possible to make sense of the different meanings which have been attributed to humanism, and to place them within a coherent framework.

The book begins with the Renaissance, showing through the work of several key figures how the rediscovery of the artistic glories and the scientific and philosophical achievements of ancient Greece and Rome led to an intellectual and artistic reaffirmation of the importance of humankind.

The author next analyzes the 18th century Enlightenment, again as expressed by the most significant writers, scientists, artists and philosophers of the period. The third chapter is devoted to the 19th century, characterized by the impact of the Industrial Revolution, by advances in science and economic theory, by neoclassicism and romanticism in the arts, and by rival versions of the humanist tradition.

Building on this historical foundation, Bullock goes on to identify the elements of a new humanism in the 20th century before the crisis which threatened to overwhelm it between 1933 and 1945. In his final chapter he examines possible answers to the question, "Has humanism a future?"

The text is supplemented by a selection of 148 black-and-white and color illustrations which serve to support and to expand on the various themes expressed in the book. At only 208 pages, this book is a pleasure to read as well as to own.

Used copies of the book, both hard bound and paperback, are available from online booksellers at under $10.

MAY BOOK CLUB SELECTION

Elmer Gantry

by Sinclair Lewis

Review from www.enotes.com:

Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry (New York, 1927) is a ferocious satire against Protestant fundamentalist religion in the American Midwest. It tells the story of a hypocritical, corrupt, but very successful preacher named Elmer Gantry. Elmer starts his career as a Baptist and then joins up with a charismatic but equally unprincipled female revivalist preacher. After her death, he joins the Methodist Church. Amoral and relentlessly ambitious, Elmer builds a statewide and national reputation as a fiery preacher who never tires of denouncing vice, while at the same time feeling no need to curb his own vices, particularly adultery.

Besides being an effective satire targeted against religious hypocrisy, Elmer Gantry provides insight into the clash of cultural forces in America in the 1920s. During this period, traditional religious believers were deeply disturbed by the encroachments made on faith by science and secularism. They also decried the growth within the church of the “higher criticism,” that sought to understand the Bible based on modern methods of scholarship.

On publication, Elmer Gantry had a sensational reception. So scandalous was Lewis’s portrayal of religion that the novel was banned in several cities and denounced from pulpits across the nation. The famous evangelist Billy Sunday called Lewis “Satan’s cohort.”

Over seventy-five years after it first appeared, Elmer Gantry still has power to shock as well as amuse.

[This is the novel upon which the Academy-award winning film "Elmer Gantry" (starring Burt Lancaster) was based]

APRIL BOOK CLUB SELECTION

Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free

by Charles P. Pierce

Review by Stephen Amidon (books@observer.com):

The pastor from Pennsylvania put it best. On the eve of a trial to determine the legality of a local school board’s decision to teach intelligent design alongside evolutionary theory, the Rev. Ray Mummert, a leader of the anti-Darwin brigade, made national headlines with a statement that cut straight to the heart of America’s culture wars. “We’ve been attacked,” he protested, “by the intelligent, educated segment of our culture.” In an increasingly divided nation, where one is asked to take sides on every issue from the creation of the universe to the first lady’s triceps, it was perhaps inevitable that people should be required to make a stand on the subject of being smart.

Charles Pierce’s Idiot America is a lively and, dare I say, intelligent study of this ongoing assault on gray matter. “We’ve chosen up sides on everything,” he asserts, “fashioning our public lives as though we were making up a fantasy baseball team.” This new civil war almost always boils down to a clash between intellect and feeling, or what Mr. Pierce labels the Gut. “The Gut is a moron, as anyone who’s ever tossed a golf club, punched a wall, or kicked a lawn mower knows,” he writes. “The Gut is the roiling repository of dark and ancient fears.” The problem is, it currently has a stranglehold on a hefty slice of our major media—talk radio—as well as that traveling circus known as the G.O.P.

People who believe that the educated intellect should guide public policy are liable to rely on facts, science and logic as their weapons of choice. Their general is James Madison, who, according to Mr. Pierce, “considered self-government no less a science than botany. It required an informed and educated and enlightened populace, or else all the delicate mechanisms of the system would come apart.” Team Gut, however, relies on bluster, superstition and bullying to wage its campaigns. Its field commanders are broadcasters like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, who deploy a battle plan Mr. Pierce calls the “Three Great Premises of Idiot America.” The first of these states that a theory need only sell books or elevate ratings in order to be deemed valid. The second maintains that “anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough.” And finally, a fact is defined as “that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it.”

MARCH BOOK CLUB SELECTION

Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic

by Chalmers Johnson

A staggering tale of American hubris and self-destruction

FEBRUARY BOOK CLUB SELECTION

The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition

by Lewis Carroll; edited by Martin Gardner

JANUARY BOOK CLUB SELECTION

Date/Time:  Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 7:00 PM

Location:  LIVING ROOM CAFE, 5900 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego CA 92115.  619-286-8434.
Three blocks west of College Avenue. Meetup site: (http://humanism.meetup.com/188/calendar/) 

RSVP:  Call Michael : 619.590.0491 or use the Meetup site.

"God is Not Great:  How Religion Poisons Everything"

by Christopher Hitchens