Last updated 2026-01-19

Book Club

The SHL Book Club normally meets on the third Sunday of the month, at 3 pm in Meeting Room B of the Main Branch of the Charleston County Public Library, located at 68 Calhoun St in Charleston.

Upcoming meetings

February 2026: Separation of Church and Hate by John Fugelsang

For more than two centuries, the United States Constitution has given us the right to a society where church and state exist independently. But Christianity has been hijacked by far-right groups and politicians who seek to impose their narrow views on government, often to justify oppressive and unequal policies. The extremists who weaponize the Bible for earthly power aren’t actually on the side of Jesus—and historically they never have been. How do we fight back against those acting—literally—in bad faith?

March 2026: Mother Emanuel by Kevin Sacks

Few people beyond South Carolina’s Lowcountry knew of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston–Mother Emanuel–before the night of June 17, 2015, when a twenty-one-year-old white supremacist walked into Bible study and slaughtered the church’s charismatic pastor and eight other worshippers. Although the shooter had targeted Mother Emanuel–the first A.M.E. church in the South–to agitate racial strife, he did not anticipate the aftermath: an outpouring of forgiveness from the victims’ families and a reckoning with the divisions of caste that have afflicted Charleston and the South since the earliest days of European settlement.

Book Club is for fun!

“Reading should be fun. It should be enjoyable. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to always be happy, but reading should never be painful, it should never be obligatory. Once you have graduated from whatever program is compelling you to read, everything you do after that should be because you want to…Do not feel guilty about reading. Reading should always be something that brings you joy, even if it doesn’t bring you happiness.”

⸺Stacey Abrams

Candidate Book List

The linked spreadsheet lists books that group members have suggested for possible future meetings:

Candidate Book List

List of Past Books

The linked spreadsheet lists books the SHL Book Club previously read:

List of Past Books

Past meetings

January 2026: The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker

In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker argues that the gatherings in our lives are lackluster and unproductive–which they don’t have to be. We rely too much on routine and the conventions of gatherings when we should focus on distinctiveness and the people involved. At a time when coming together is more important than ever, Parker sets forth a human-centered approach to gathering that will help everyone create meaningful, memorable experiences, large and small, for work and for play.

December 2025: The Project by David Graham

When President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, news spread about his implementation of Project 2025, a nearly 1,000-page document published by the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation. The debates—and anxiety—surrounding this initiative have only increased as authors of the Project assume positions of power in the second Trump administration.

November 2025: How Minds Change by David McRaney

What made a prominent conspiracy-theorist YouTuber finally see that 9/11 was not a hoax? How do voter opinions shift from neutral to resolute? Can widespread social change only take place when a generation dies out? From one of our greatest thinkers on reasoning, HOW MINDS CHANGE is a book about the science, and the experience, of transformation.

October 2025: Money, Lies, and God by Katherine Stewart

We are reading Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy by Katherine Stewart for our October book club meeting. The meeting will be held at 3 pm on Sunday, October 26th in Meeting Room B of the Main Public Library downtown. Metered...