Bread and Wine - Shauna Niequist

Any book that begins with the invitation to ‘read the book in the bath, and then take it to the kitchen to spill wine and oil on it as you cook’ is a book that ingratiates itself to me before I open the cover.  The principle of the book is hear about how an open kitchen and welcoming house can build, shape and create community.  It is a book to be used and returned to time and time again; as life shifts and lives meet together.

 

It is a book that explores themes of hospitality, hope, disappointment, miscarriage, faith, sacrament and food.  Part memoir, part recipe book, it is a strange book to categorise.  Each chapter has a journalistic style – short and sharp.  It is reminiscent of Giles Coren’s book ‘How to eat well’ but with less swearing and a little more humility.  Rather like a meal, Niequist enables people to savour each chapter; each insight into her experience – or to hurriedly move on to the next mouthful before the requirements of life interrupt once again.

 

Individual meals make Niequist’s reflections about life.  Food becomes her anchor to explore events and emotions in stark vulnerability and clarity.  She shares about the friends bought a casserole as she came home from a hospital appointment feeling empty and hollow.  The leaving banquet as she moved to a different city.  The baby shower where friends all bought their favourite dish to share.  And those serendipitous moments where good friends show up, uninvited, and make themselves at home by washing up, setting the table, and boiling the kettle.  

 

Niequist is an advocate of the principle that hospitality begins with being comfortable with chaos.  It is the invitation to join in with life that may not be fully hovered, dusted, or clean.  But amidst the physical chaos comes the invitation to share the stories of life.  The laughter and pain that happens in the security and safety of friendship and family.

 

As she goes, Niequist provides (gluten free) recipes along with the sections in the book, which culminate in a final section of menu plans for book clubs.  So there’s her final invitation.  Pull up a chair (or box or blanket); bring a dish – the recipes are included – and share our insights about ‘Bread and Wine.’  As you do, listen carefully – for therein you may indeed catch a glimpse of grace.

 

 

Questions for your book club:

 

‘I can’t imagine life without a table between us.’

                Who would you most like to eat with and why?

               

Niequist talks about the power of the dining table  What is the most important piece of furniture in your house?  What makes it significant?

 

Which room of your house helps you best connect to God?

 

Niequist recites numerous tales of chaotic meals shared with friends at the most humbling and crucial times in life.

                How does her willingness to embrace the chaotic side of hospitality make you feel?

                What is the one thing in your house that you would hide before letting someone in?

                Have you ever offered or received hospitality at a significant moment in your life?  What happened?

                When have you been offered bad hospitality?

 

Niequist reflects on the sacramentality of sharing food around a meal table. 

Why is sharing bread and wine significant to you?

                Is she right that every meal shared is a sacramental act?

                What makes hospitality holy?

 

What is the best meal you have ever shared?  What made it special?

 

This book is filled with recipes and invitations to share culinary experimentation.  What is your signature dish or family recipe?

 

Who are you going to invite for dinner this week?

The Colour of Milk

The Colour of Milk

Nell Leyshon

 

In this edition, we turn our attention to Nell Leyshon’s ‘The Colour of Milk’.  This novel has been compared to Alice Walker’s classic ‘The Color Purple’ and Margaret Attwood’s magnum opus ‘Alias Grace’ and  there are certainly similarities between these books both in terms of style and content.  If you are going to read ‘The Colour of Milk’, it is worth noting that, despite its short length, it is filled with are images that are both haunting and traumatic:  this is not a novel for the fainthearted.  One critic has written that it was a book that they ‘read in a couple of hours but the characters remain with me for weeks.’ 

 

The year is eighteen hundred and thirty one.  Mary – the narrator and sole voice in the novel - is fifteen.  She is a hardworking farm girl who is both powerfully self assured and yet naïve about the world.  Mary is sharp tongued, beautifully observant and strong willed, as is demonstrated by her refrain throughout the novel: ‘this is my book and i am writing it by my own hand.’  Mary moves from the harsh reality of an abusive father and an emotionally disengaged mother into the home of the local vicar, where her chief task is to look after the vicar’s wife during a long and protracted illness.

 

At the vicarage she is taught to read and write – which becomes the key sign of her freedom and developing power.  At the point in which she has power, however, the question facing her is how she will use it, and what the consequences of her actions might be.

 

The novel is heavily stylised.  It only uses lower case letters, and the narrative flow seems unsophisticated and childlike.  The novel’s other protagonists are caricatures,  sketched into the narrative by their flaws and failings rather than by their appearance or fortitude. 

 

Leyshon weaves a rural narrative strongly through the novel, with the chapters or sections of the novel reflecting the changing seasons.  The pace of the novel brings with it a sense of foreboding, as the pages quickly turn towards its heartbreaking finale.

 

Although beautifully crafted, the narrative never falls into a perfect idyll, and the final twist in the novel serves as a tragic climax to the story of a girl whose hair is the colour of milk.

 

Questions for discussion:

 

How does the style of the book affect your engagement with the story and the characters?

 

There are a number of tough events and themes in the book.  Which do you find the most shocking, and why?

 

What, in your opinion, is Mary’s main disability?

 

The novel is written from Mary’s perspective.  Who’s voice would you like to hear from next?  Why?  What do you think they might say?

 

What is the biggest tragedy in the novel?

 

What is ‘freedom’ and how it is exercised (or abused) by the characters in the novel?

 

If you were writing your own story, in your own hand, how would your story start?

Life of Pi

Life of Pi – Yann Martel

 

This month’s book club read is ‘Life of Pi’ – another award winner both in print and now on the silver screen too.  This choice means that you can meet as a book club, or as a film club – or indeed both!  It also means that getting hold of the book is relatively easy, because of the interest and momentum caused by Ang Lee’s movie.

 

‘Life of Pi’ tells the story of Piscine Patel (aka ‘Pi’) – a young man who begins his tale in Pondicherry, India – where he lives on the family zoo. There he learns all that he can about animal welfare as well as embracing and, to the bewilderment of those around him, practicing Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. 

 

Despite such a broad upbringing, the family is affected by the political instability of a newly independent India, and sets sail (zoo and all) for Canada.  But tragedy strikes and the boat sinks. All the inhabitants of the ship perish except for Pi, who is left to discover greater mysteries of the sea.  He is cast adrift on a surviving lifeboat with the only other survivor of the tragedy – a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

 

As the hours turn into a 227 day voyage, Pi is faced with all the challenges of survival – battling both the elements and the tiger on board.  Soon Pi becomes surrounded by death, decay and despair.  None of his religious rituals provide him with either the ideas or the solace that he so desperately searches for.  At his lowest ebb, Pi must facethe grueling reality of casting off his own assumptions and identity, confronting his terrors and the greater reality of God.

 

Yann Martel has deservedly won numerous accolades for this astonishing and gripping btome.  This is a mainstream book, not a religious text – and yet it asks the questions of faith and the faithful.  Utterly implausible, and yet somehow charming and captivating, this novel will continue to be an iconic story well beyond the rolling movie credits.

 

As ever, if you have read this book – or indeed if you use it in your own book club, write to us and let us know what you thought of it and which questions most engaged your community.  Email mrbookclub@methodistchurch.org.uk or leave your comments on the blog.  Further resources on the film can be found at www.damaris.org/lifeofpi where you can download clips, as well as check out conversations between secular and faith leaders talking about the issues raised in the film.

 

Questions about the book:

 

·         What is the value of hearing the author’s voice at the start? 

·         Does the story have a happy ending?

·         Which part of the novel do you like the most?

·         How do Pi’s father’s abilities as a parent compare to his skills as a zookeeper?  How might Pi’s experience with the goat affect the rest of his story?

·         In chapter 4, Pi offers a strong case for the benefit and value of zoos.  Do you agree with his argument or not?  Why?

·         In chapters 8 and 56, Pi explores the importance of doubt.  When have you most doubted something and what did you doubt?

·         Are you convinced by Pi’s religious exploration?

·         In chapter 20, Pi says that ‘the presence of God is the finest of rewards.’  Where have you felt the presence of God?

·         Chapter 58 offers a survival kit and advice.  What would you pack in your survival kit, and what advice would you give to another castaway?

·         If you were stuck on a lifeboat, what animal would you most like to be trapped with, and why?

·         What is the significance of Pi’s blindness?

·         How did you feel when Pi reached land at the end of part 2?

·         Why does Pi hoard food from the Japanese inquisitors?

·         The author recognizes that this novel is an allegory.  What do you think the novel is about?  What is reality?

·         There is much storytelling in this ‘religious novel.’  Is there a relationship between storytelling and religion?

·         What literary genre does Life of Pi fit? Is it a tragedy, comedy, romance, or even a reference book?

·         Pi suffers a traumatic event that marks his coming of age.  What moment or event has marked a coming of age for you?

·         What are the key attributes of Pi’s humanity that you would like to see emulated in your own life?

·         Which part of the story would you like to have heard more about?

Pure

Pure
Andrew Miller

This month, we turn our attention to the 2011 Costa book of the year, and the intense drama of ‘Pure.’  On the front cover, the reader is captivated by the pistachio-coloured cloak, worn by the protagonist, Jean-Baptiste Barratte, as he seeks to find his place in the heart of Paris.  This is an historical novel, based around the overflowing Cemetery of les Innocents.  The task is a macabre one; to dig out the heart of the city’s cemetery in order to begin to bring life back into the heart of Paris.

 

 This is pre-Revolutionary France; a place of decadence and poverty.  Our hero meets both the best and the worst of Parisienne society, and crucially for the time, suffers for his art.  An engineer by trade, Baptiste embodies someone struggling to create a new society, whilst the very foundations on which life is built collapse beneath him.

 

Pure has been critically reviewed, with many critics noting its use of language and descriptions.  It is not an easy read, and some readers may well find the closing scene frustrating.  However, it is a beautifully written book with plenty to discuss with others.

 

Questions for discussion:

 

This novel was awarded the 2011 Costa Book of the Year.  To what extent does an award or recommendation affect your decision to read a book?

 

The novel is set in 1785, just before the French Revolution.  How does this context affect the story?

 

Some people have suggested that the Cemetery is a parable for change and revolution.

·         In what ways might this be true?

·         How do the different characters interact with the cemetery (as fact or as metaphor?)

·         How does the writer help the reader engage with the shifting context?

 

What is ‘Pure’ about the novel, if anything?  Why is the title so important for this novel?

 

Jean-Baptiste accepts his commission without flinching.  How does the exhumation of a cemetery make you feel?  Why?  What do you think about Jean-Baptiste’s task?

 

Monsiuer Saint-Meard is the church organist.  What part does he play throughout the novel?

 

As the burden of the destruction of the cemetery bears down on Jean-Baptiste, Lecoeur consoles him with the words that ‘tomorrow will break our hearts.’ 

·         Why does Jean-Baptiste insist that ‘tomorrow will be easier.’

·         Who is right?  Why?

 

Doctor Guillotin is very clinical when it comes to dealing in death.

·         Why are some of the characters revulsed and silent by this?

·         How do you respond to death?

·         Why are we afraid to talk about death?

 

The final act of the book involves the gutting of a church.

·         What did the miners and Jean-Baptiste save?

·         What would you save?  Why?

 

Jean-Baptiste is a character in contradiction.  He walks the line between traditional and modern, rational and religious.

·         How do you respond to this?

·         In what ways is this contradictory nature a barrier understanding the character?

 

There are a number of gritty and macabre scenes in the novel.

·         What do they add to the narrative?

·         What elements of light are there in the book?

·         Which do you respond to positively?  Which are more difficult to reconcile?  Why?

 

In what ways does this novel help you engage with your own choices and mortality?  Why?

The Gifts of Imperfection

The Gifts of Imperfection

Brene Brown

 

Very occasionally, books come by which take one’s breath away.  The Gifts of Imperfection is one such book.  It is most possibly my book of the decade.  It is unusual, as it is part memoir, part handbook.  As such, it is potentially an odd choice for a book club to discuss due to the lack of characterisation – but there is so much in this short book that deserves attention and conversation with friends, that it would be remiss not to recommend it here.

 

The aim of Brown’s book is to offer readers insights and tools towards ‘wholeheartedness.’  For Brown wholeheartedness is that state of being which is marked by compassion, courage and joyfulness.  It is a sharp, insightful, and occasionally a little crude, reflection on what it might be to choose a defiant and passionate, liberated, life.

 

Brown has spent the majority of her life listening to, and collating, people’s stories of vulnerability and shame.  From these encounters and experiences, Brown has spent a great deal of time in her own therapeutic setting, recalibrating her own identity and personal responses to her own experiences of vulnerability and shame.  In ‘The Gifts of Imperfection’ Brown outlines her own “spiritual awakening” (Brown prefers the description ‘breakdown’) and offers readers the opportunity to engage with mechanisms for living a more wholehearted life.

 

This book should be more widely read than it currently has been.  Brown explores how to move from perfectionism to compassion; from fear to gratitude; certainty to faithfulness; exhaustion to rest; anxiety to calm; self doubt to meaning; and control to laughter.  The negative list here reads like many of the descriptors of twenty-first century living.  The positive list, for me at least, often feels quite a distance away. 

 

What Brown offers through her memoir is an amusing, sometimes painful, reflection on her own life whilst at the same time pointing her readers to lessons learnt and activities to foster in one’s own life.  This is definitely a book that will serve an individual well, and would make a great book for a Lent course or short housegroup series, taking a chapter at a time.

 

This book will change your life – especially if you begin to put into practice some of the principles and exercises Brown suggests.  This is not a self help book perpetuating naval gazing and self importance.  This is a handbook to wholehearted living: life long, whole life and world transforming life to the full. 

 

There are lots of questions in this column, but this is because there is a question for each chapter.  Feel free not to ask each question, or to use the DIG DEEPER parts of each chapter rather than the questions here.  ‘The Gifts of Imperfection’ is a book that reward multiple reading and engaged discussion.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

 

Questions for discussion

 

What were your initial expectations when reading a memoir? 

In what ways was reading this different to reading a novel?

 

What did you find most compelling about the book as a whole? What is the one gem that has remained with you from the book?

 

Which chapter did you find the most helpful?  Why?

Which chapter did you find the most difficult?  Why?

 

To what extent is Brown’s voice a necessary one in the text?  Do you find her personal exploration helpful or jarring?  Why?

 

Brown defines wholeheartedness through three key characteristics: courage, compassion and connection.  What else, if anything, would you add to the list?

 

For Brown, wholehearted living is a ‘path of consciousness and a choice. And, to be honest, a little countercultural.’ Do you agree?  Why/Why not?

 

There is a difference between shame and guilt.  In what ways do you agree/disagree?

What does shame look like?

‘Authenticity isn’t always the safe option.’ What examples of this can you think of from your own life experience where this has been the case? (guidepost #1)

 

Why do you think compassion might spread quickly? (guidepost #2)

 

‘When we numb the dark, we numb the light.’ In what ways do you agree/disagree?  Why?  What from your own experience supports/contradicts this? (guidepost #3)

 

How might joy and happiness be different things? (guidepost #4)

 

Do we need certainty in our faith?  Why/why not?  What answer would Brown give to this question? (guidepost #5)

 

‘If we want to make meaning, we need to make art.  Cook, write, draw, doodle, paint, scrapbook, take pictures, collage, knit, rebuild an engine, sculpt, dance, decorate, act, sing…’ What are you going to create in light of this conclusion?  (guidepost #6)

 

‘We have to let go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self worth.’ What makes this hard to do? (guidepost #7)

 

Brown suggests that stillness and calm have the consequence of making humanity face up to the realities of its existence, and that this can be a painful and difficult encounter.  In what ways do you agree/disagree with Brown’s conclusion? (guidepost #8)

Where do you go to be still? 

What effect does stillness and/or silence have on you?

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Paul Torday

 

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a much acclaimed book, having won the 2007 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction.  It has since become a  major film starring Ewan MacGregor and Emily Blunt. This is the first novel written by Paul Torday, who has subsequently written a number of popular novels.

Dr Jones is a fish specialist, working for a UK government department.  His small world is about to be shaken up, with the invitation by Sheikh Muhammad to introduce salmon – and the sport of salmon fishing – to his native Yemen.  The government sees this as a great opportunity to capitalise on a good news story in the Middle East.  Dr Jones remains unconvinced that the project will work and that the salmon in question will actually survive in the desert conditions of Yemen.

Through a mixture of diary entries, interviews, emails, letters, and formal reports, we are introduced to the developing plans and schemes for this impossible project, and the characters who influence the success (or otherwise) of it.

This is not so much a book about fishing as it is about faith and belief: the belief in one man’s dream, and the ways in which it can change another man’s world.

Questions

How does the changing narrative style (letters, emails, diary entries, interviews, scripts) affect the way that you engaged with the novel?

The novel positions the Western world of science and reason alongside the developing world of the Middle East, where there is greater interest in the mystical.  Which worldview do you find most compelling in the novel?  Why?

How does the unseen character of Captain Robert Matthews help and/or hinder the wider political perspectives of the novel?

Which characters do you find the most compelling? Why?

Which storylines do you find the most difficult?  Why?

In what ways is the novel about salmon fishing in the Yemen?  What else would you have called the book, given its themes?

The Sheikh says ‘without faith there is no hope, and no love. Faith comes before hope and before love.’

·       Do you agree?

·       How does this play out in the novel?

·       How have you experienced this in your own life?

Dr Jones says that he has moved on from going to church to going to Tesco’s

·       What has he lost or gained from this?

‘In this Old Testament land it is difficult not to believe in myths and magic and miracles.’

·       What does the Sheikh mean by this?

·       When and where have you believed in myths and magic and miracles?

·       What effect might a different context have in helping people to experience the spiritual?

‘I believe in it because it is impossible.’

·       Is this enough?

·       What has led Dr Jones to reach this conclusion?  Is he right to believe?

Who and what does Dr Jones believe in, by the end of the novel?

The book is intended as a satire on the UK’s bureaucracy and political systems. In what ways does it achieve this aim?

How satisfied are you at the end of the novel?

·       What would you like to have happened differently?

·       What would you like to have known more about?

Further idea: Why not arrange to watch the film together with your group when it comes out on DVD?  You could discuss the changes that the filmmakers have made to the novel.  You may also want to invite other friends to watch the movie with you, and perhaps even to join your book club as a result.

Fifty Shades of Grey

Fifty Shades of Grey


CAUTION: CONTAINS EXPLICIT LANGUAGE 
AND SEX REFERENCES


E.L. James' trilogy have taken the world by storm, topping numerous bestseller lists, and even replacing Bibles in one Cumbrian hotel.  The trilogy (Fifty Shades of Grey | Darker | Freed) was written with the intention of following on from the Twilight novels - themselves teen vampire movies about a complicated relationship between a heroine and her two supernatural suiters.

The reason why Fifty Shades is such an intriguing and all-pervading phenomenon, is that the subject matter of the novels is not  a character driven romantic series of novels about the developing relationship between the protagonists Ana and Christian.  Rather, the novels revolve around the Dominant/Subordinate relationship in a sado-masochistic relationship.  The books themselves are pornographic in content and gratuitous in detail.  One critic has suggested that these are Mills and Boon style novels for people who do not read Mills and Boon.  Needless to say, Fifty Shades has become the fastest and best selling adult novel of all time, there is a renewed focus and investment from bookstores and the film and sex industries, in kinky sex-fantasy fiction.

The novels tell the story of the accidental meeting of the multi-billionaire Christian Grey, and student Anastasia (Ana) Steele.  It is an initial meeting of lust at first sight, as Ana goes on a whistle-stop tour of sexual awakening and introduction into the world of S&M.  The second and third part of the trilogy develop their speedy relationship, and work patterns, as well as introducing a thriller twist which demonstrates that the protagonists are not quite as in control of life, pleasure and pain as their explicit exploits would perhaps indicate.

I agree with the journalist Zoe Williams who suggests that:

The need for a plot invites in some true gothic horror show and, stripped of his deviations, Christian Grey is just a controlling, unpleasant man whom, even 30 years ago, no sane heroine would ever have married.

The books are written in a short prose style, making them easy to read, but lacking in quality and beauty - and even, arguably, plot.  The characters are unsympathetically caricatured.  Grey's character is  more abusive than brooding, and his backstory of brokenness fails to ring true - despite his being a story of destitution to riches.  Ana's naivety fails to be the window for the reader.  The minor characters do not add the depth of texture that they could have done, and plot developments are signposted rather early into each novel.

But these novels are popular.  They are the subject of blog posts, conversations in staff rooms and workplaces, shorthand in comedy sketches and referenced in numerous articles and publications.  The books are prioritised on supermarket shelves and promoted on billboards. This surely makes them intriguing and important to engage with from a missional and sociological perspective.  In saying this, I do so cautiously.  I learnt far more than I ever wanted to learn about S&M, and read details about a couple's life that I cared little for (both in terms of the characters and the sexual revelations disclosed.)

This should not distract from the significant popularity and impact that this rekindled interest in erotica is having on a whole generation of female readers.

Martin Saunders has written this review of the Fifty Shades trilogy, recognising the ethical quandary of engaging in a novel that glorifies subordination and sexual deviance, suggests that there is also a deeper question at work - that of the cultural zeitgeist which provides a market for this sort of romantic erotic fiction:

Fifty Shades isn’t just massive, it’s mainstream. If we want to reach this culture relevantly with our story – the message of the gospel – then we need to understand this culture; to take time to listen to the stories that are being told, and to consider why they are finding resonance. Like it or not, Fifty Shades is 2012’s biggest literary sensation, and with publishers reportedly gearing up to release a slew of explicit fiction titles in its wake, we need to ask why this is happening.

 Zoe Williams, the Guardian columnist has gone some way to suggest an answer to this, with many critics joining her in the assessment that one of the reasons for its success is that with the popularity of electronic reading devices, written pornography becomes clandestine and accessible - and once the text is in the hands of the masses, it then becomes OK to talk about it in public.  There may be some truth in this (and also see this reflection from Big Bible), with Holly Poulter pointing out that:

Explicit books like Fifty Shades can be read without shame in front of dozens in a packed commuter train, because all they can read is the product code on the unassumingly grey back panel of the e-reader.

However, I have on more than one occasion, sat on a London Tube, reading Fifty Shades alongside a significant number of other women - in physical paperback.  The Kindle may have made books like this accessible, but from my observation that for some, there is little caution (and almost a little pride) about reading porn in public.

I do wonder whether what is going on under the auspice of sexual liberation and sold as radical feminism - is nothing short of extrovert voyeurism.  It is true that the porn industry is often at the forefront of technological developments (and thus the e-reader arguments have some weight).  Fifty Shades is not a great advert for literature, but it is a demonstration of the compulsion that a combination of sex and propaganda can have.  At the height of a recession, sex sells (just look at the success of Ann Summers, and the increasing birth rate over the last few months).

In an age when the Church (and indeed the world) is struggling to talk about sexuality with much integrity (be that about gender or orientation), it is perhaps no surprise that the moral void is filled with the voice of popular culture; shifting a debate outside of closed debates and academic nuances - into one of knowing glances, bitten lips, and the newly awakened voices around water coolers and on public transport.  Perhaps without knowing it, the reader begins to embody Ana - and in so doing, attempts to redeem the clandestine, the kinky and the deviant into a bold education and awakening.

It is easy to dismiss the Fifty Shades trilogy as trite nonsense or as soft porn (both arguably true).  However, there is a sexual awakening underway in society.  The invitation to the church is to be part of this awakening, and to begin to rediscover and promote a theology of sexuality, wholeness and pleasure - taking its inspiration from Scriptures (Song of Songs and Hosea) as well as Saint (Catherine of Sienna et al).  Let's not get left behind in the conversation, whispering contempt without offering something different - a vision and practice of relationship, grace and wholeness - in debate, pop culture engagement, and in our personal relationships.  If nothing else, the Fifty Shades trilogy invites a conversation about values in relationship and the positive use of power, and that is surely something that as Christians we have something to say about...


Questions


Have you read the novels?  Why or why not?

What have you seen/heard of the novels?  How has this affected the way that you approach conversations about the Fifty Shades trilogy?

What is your fear about the novels?

Are we living in an over-sexualised culture?

If you have read the novel/s:

What did you think of the novel/s?  Does the hype meet your expectations?

Why did you decide to read them?

Which character/s did you most sympathise with?  Why?

Which character/s do you least sympathise with? Why?

What are the main themes of the book?  How well are these delivered and developed in the novel?

Ana's character is back talking and argumentative.  In what ways does this make Ana a headstrong, autonomous heroine - and in which ways does it make her brattish and weak?

How might the story have changed if Christian and his family were not so wealthy?  Would his fetishes have been so readily accepted had he not been a man of means?

What is the significance of the protagonist being called 'Christian'?  How does that change the way you read the novel/s?

Who has power in the novel/s, and how do they use/misuse it?

Why do you think these novel/s are so popular?  Is it just because sex sells, or because of something deeper in society?

How might these novels help to stimulate a conversation about sex and sexuality?  In what ways might it hinder such conversation?  In such a conversation, what perspectives would you want to add into the mix?

How do you respond to the critiques offered in this post - who are you most convinced by - Poulter, Saunders, Levermore or Williams?  What arguments would you want to add to the conversation?