Looking for a way to reduce cabin fever?

UU members Paula Montgomery and Thom Botsford are eager to share their favorite Reads.

“This time of constraint is ideal for pursuit of books,” says Paula, who lists reading “among the joys of my life,” and recommends three recent favorites. She also notes: “I will be glad to lend them.” The books:

– Becoming Eve by Abby Chava Stein, “an autobiography of a Jewish man who knew he should be a woman, which also provides a fascinating description of life as a strict Hasidic Jew in an 18th Century Eastern European enclave.”

– American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins, an exciting story of a Mexican woman and children on the run to escape a massacre, and the people they meet and the life they live on the road.

– The Dutch House, a fiction book by Ann Patchett: “about a brother and sister who maintain love despite their evil stepmother.”

Thom Botsford, who says he tends to juggle half a dozen or more books at a time, picked these three to recommend to UU readers:

– Music: A Subversive History, by Ted Gioa. Notes Thom: “It seems that music has always been a ‘wild card,’ … and musicians have been ‘behaving badly’ for a very long time indeed.”

– The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan, concerning four plants that seduced humanity: the apple, the tulip, cannabis and the potato.

– The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoevsky: “a grand novel from another day, with subjects including the supposed death of God and the mystical power of love and devotion to God.”

We welcome suggestions for “Let’s Read!” from UUCP Members and Friends. Please make sure your synopses are no more than 2 or 3 lines, and email your suggestions to Charlotte Crane at charlotte@charcrane.net or Terra (Office Admin) at uupensacola@gmail.com.