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New reads for the new year

In January, the Green Gettysburg Book Club and Gettysburg for Gun Sense will be studying some amazing works. As I delve into these reads, I am also fortunate to have received from Santa a copy of the prize-winning novel, “Orbital,” about watching Earth from the space station, by Samantha Harvey.

The Green Gettysburg Book Club will first look at the new short work by Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry.  Kimmerer is especially known for her ecological masterpiece, Braiding Sweetgrass. In the recent meditation, Kimmerer gathers serviceberries, along with thoughts about what she refers to as the “gift economy.”   How can people walk alongside one another, learning an ethic of reciprocity that fits both the “more than human” plant and animal communities of our world, and communities of people? How can we be informed by Indigenous wisdom in this undertaking, so crucial in our day? Following this reading we will join in studying Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Powers’ novel, Playground. This is a study of both Polynesia and the intersection of humanity with the awesome world of the ocean.  Powers is known for his earlier novel about the forest and foresters, called The Overstory, as well as for other New York Times bestsellers like Bewilderment.  For environmental readers like me, Playground seems a good entry into the marvels of the Powers universe. Green Gettysburg readers meet online at 9 a.m. on Fridays, in discussions led by Gettysburg College professor Will Lane, who can be reached for further info at  wlane@gettysburg.edu 

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Gettysburg for Gun Sense (GGS) begins the year on Jan. 16th, by studying the article “Forum: Doing Less Harm,” by David Hemenway, Director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. In this article from the Harvard Magazine, Hemenway advocates a public health approach to gun homicides and suicides.  It is available online by emailing Judy at jsmithyoung@gmail.com   Hemenway is a brilliant analyst of the data surrounding gun deaths and injuries in America, as well as data on other types of injuries, including the lives saved by public health interventions such as requiring seat belt use.  Then, on February 6th, GGS will begin the study of One Nation Under Guns: How Gun Culture Distorts Our History and Threatens Our Democracy, by Dominic Erdozain. Under Guns argues that to solve the epidemic of gun violence in America we must return to the big picture of the founding fathers’ true idea of what it means to be free, rather than accepting the unfreedom of a dangerously armed society, created by a distorted understanding of the Second Amendment.  GGS book studies meet in person through April on first and third Thursdays, from 10:30 to 11:30 am, in the Community Room of the Gettysburg and Adams County YMCA. All are welcome. GGS representatives will also host a table at Healthy Adams County’s Mental Wellness evening on Jan. 22nd (snowdate Jan 30), called “When the Sun Goes Down, Find Your Light,” that will be held at Gettysburg High School from 7 to 9 pm.

Orbital by Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for good reason. The book is indeed “a moving elegy to our environment and planet,” as described on its back cover. Whatever else you read in 2025, consider lifting your spirits by reading Orbital too.

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Judy Young is a retired United Methodist pastor. She convenes Gettysburg for
Gun Sense and the Adams County branch of the PA Prison Society, and is a
member of the Green Gettysburg Book Club.

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