Fish and Bread

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So, when I posted that thread a few minutes ago excerpt from a speech Bishop Michael Curry gave, it reminded me of something, which is that he's written a book (Well, two books, but I'm only talking about the one just now). It's a book I've been thinking about reading.

The name of the book is called "Crazy Christians: A Call to Follow Jesus".

Here's a link to the Amazon Kindle edition:



Anyhow, I used to read all these theological books and the church fathers, but I'm having a hard time getting into it these days.

If we can get 10 other people to commit to buying and reading this book, I'll buy it and maybe we can read a chapter a week or something and talk about it and help ourselves get through the thing on the forum together. :)

If you're willing to commit to doing it, just say "I'm in". :) If we don't get 11 people counting me, we're all dispensed from our commitment. ;)

How's that?

I know this is an Episcopal Church bishop, but the book is just a book for Christians- I think, anyway.

I was tempted to recommend Archbishop Rembert Weakland's book, which I only mention all the time, who actually is a Roman Catholic bishop, but I've already read that, so I'm not going to. ;)

Alternately, maybe a late Thomas Merton book. I've already read Seven Storey Mountain. ;)

What are some good progressive Catholic Spirit of Vatican II type books? Hans Kung favorites? Andrew Greeley?

To keep this simple, let's just say in or out on the Curry book. And you can recommend others. If we don't get me plus 10 on the Curry book at a certain point, but a lot of people said "No, but I would do x", I'll close the thread or request that it be closed, and we can maybe try again with a different book. :)

But on this thread, if you say you're in, you're committing to Crazy Christians, and also to reading a book called Crazy Christians. ;)*

* Subject to enough other people committing to meet the totally arbitrary threshold I set. :)
 
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Godlovesmetwo

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Give me time Fishy. I need to read Holy Longing by Rolheiser first. I'm interested but is there any chance it would end up in an Australian library in the next 2 or 3 years? Yes I'm that stingy. :)
 
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tadoflamb

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Give me time Fishy. I need to read Holy Longing by Rolheiser first. I'm interested but is there any chance it would end up in an Australian library in the next 2 or 3 years? Yes I'm that stingy. :)


I'll be offline and on vacation for a couple of weeks but I'm taking The Holy Longing with me so when I get back I'll be really ready to discuss it.
 
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Hetta

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In, but don't have a kindle so would need to source a hard copy.
If you have a smart phone or a tablet you can get the Kindle app and download books to it. I have an iPad and I have both the Kindle and Nook apps because one might have a book cheaper than the other.
 
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Fish and Bread

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So far, we have me plus 3, with the idea that we'll go ahead and do it if we can get me plus 10. And a few maybes. So we need 7 more. :) If we don't get them, we can always try again with another book, and of course it's not as though people wouldn't be allowed to read this book anyway if they want do. :) I just figured it doesn't make sense to lock anyone into it if we don't get enough people to guarantee that we can really discuss it as we go, so we'll see if we can get enough people to do that. :)

I should mention that I just linked to the Amazon Kindle version because that's what I'd get, and for the sake of reference (i.e. people can read click and read customer reviews and such). It's also sold in other formats and by other retailers:

Paperback from Amazon US (A few dollars more than the Kindle version):


Paperback used from third-party sellers via Amazon US:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-lis...?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=1465691831&sr=8-1

Nook format (For Barnes and Noble e-readers) from Barnes and Noble US:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/crazy-christians-michael-curry/1114701478?ean=9780819228864

Paperback from Barnes and Noble US online:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/crazy-christians-michael-curry/1114701478?ean=9780819228857

Kindle From Amazon UK:


Paperback from Amazon UK:


Used Paperback from Amazon UK:


Kindle Edition from Amazon Australia:

https://www.amazon.com.au/Crazy-Chr...r=8-1&keywords=Crazy+Christians+Michael+Curry

Couldn't find an Australian paperback version, but one may exist.

I don't know all the different book sellers in every different country. I just figured I'd add a few links that I could find.

As noted, some people do buy and read Kindle formatted books through Android and iOS (iPhone/iPad) apps, and there is a Kindle app for Windows PCs also, in addition to the obvious way to read them, through Kindle e-readers.

But this in paperback various places, too. Just a matter of personal preference (file versus dead tree. ;) ) and what each reader can obtain if we get enough people to go forward with it. :) They should all basically be the same thing content wise.

Off the top of my head, I'm thinking what we'd do once we get the needed number is start a second organizing thread once we're definitely going to do it, and talk about how much time we'd need to get the book in hand then the details of how we're going to do it once we start (i.e. A chapter a week? Do we post our commentary whenever we finish the chapter individually, or "embargo" it until the end of each week and discuss only the previous chapter until the "read by" date? That sort of thing). Off the top of my head, with widespread availability of electronic and physical versions with fast shipping available, it seems like we could maybe say something like "Try to get the book a week from when we have enough people confirmed that we're going forward" and then have the discussion on the first chapter or whatever a week after that, with the idea that people will have the week to get the book and another week to read the chapter, but if they can't get a hold of it in the week, they can get it in like 11 days and then do the first chapter in 3 days and still be on-time if they want to do it that way or circumstances require. :)

I figure it doesn't make sense to "start the clock" on anything until we have a big enough group, though. Because if we don't have a big enough group, I don't want anyone to feel like they bought the book for nothing (Unless they just want to read it for themselves whether there's a group discussion or not, of course).

I'm obviously not anti-library either! I just don't know if this is something that would be in people's local libraries or not. They'd know better than me! :)

Oh, and some of the above links may not show up for people running certain select ad-blockers and filter lists in their browsers (I actually can't see some of them myself), because CF sort of re-formats the links to certain stores as advertisements with a picture of the book. But you can then go and look it up manually on the site of your choice if you can't see in the thread, of course. :)

Anyone else interested?
 
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Fish and Bread

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Oh, and I found this. It seems to be something where you can hook in through your local library and "borrow" an e-book, that then I guess it disappears in a certain amount of time or something:

https://www.overdrive.com/media/2626476/crazy-christians

I have no idea what the details are, though, and it says the book is unavailable on their the service in my region, so it may not work for people. I'm just tossing it out there in case anyone likes the idea of it and can figure it out. ;)

Might be easier to check to see if your library can obtain the physical book if you're a library person, but I have no idea how long the wait times are for stuff like that.
 
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Fish and Bread

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Fish and Bread

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Looks like this didn't work out, but I thought I'd bump it one last time and kind of set a deadline for definitively sort of releasing everyone who volunteered to participate and moving on from the idea in this incarnation with this particular book, at least.

We said were were aiming for at least me plus 10 other people if we were going to do it. We have me plus 3 to date. It's been about a week. So, why don't we say the deadline to get the other 7 to say they are in is Wednesday June 22nd at 11pm Eastern Daylight Time (US)? If we don't have the other 7 for a total of 11 counting myself, we'll just release everyone and move on. :) If we get at least the number of people we wanted before then, we'll start a planning thread and ask everyone to try to get a copy of the book (physical or digital) in their hands as soon as they feasibly can. :)

Who knows? The forum traffic has been much higher the last 24 hours or so, so some people who didn't see this thread when it was posted might see it and want to participate and we might get our group. :)

If not, no big deal, life goes on, and we'll call it late Wednesday night and move on to whatever. Obviously, people can still read the book on their own if the group discussion/club aspect doesn't work out- or not read it on their own. It'll just go back to being one of a million books you might read or not read at some point. :)
 
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