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Book clubs

Lee Ann would love to drop in on your discussion of The Salt and Light Express. Either in person (if local) or via Zoom. Please reach out to her via the Contact Me page. 

A thinking person’s novel built for book clubs 

The Salt and Light Express is made for book clubs and studies that enjoy character-driven novels that make readers think. There’s a term for it: upmarket, but that’s really an industry term that doesn’t mean much to the everyday reader. 

The author has facilitated more than 20 book studies with church groups. These are churches that welcome questions and different takes on what it means to be a Christian in the United States in the 21st Century.

Because much of the book celebrates libraries as a community institution and a main character (and hero) is a Latina librarian, The Salt and Light Express would also be very much at home in a library book club. LGBTQ-focused book clubs are another candidate for the novel. 

She has included a PDF of discussion questions. The Goodreads list at right are books that have raised – and answered – questions for her along the way. If you would like to recommend one, please email her. 

In the book’s acknowledgements, she writes: 

“The musings on faith, prayer, God, and the nature of Christianity in this country reflect my own theology. I came to it in fits and starts over decades. There are several spiritual writers quoted in the novel who helped steer me away from a judgy, overbearing, and know-it-all version of Christianity.”

Lee Ann plays keyboards at a United Methodist church in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware every Sunday.

Lee Ann's spiritual reading montage

The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What's So Good About the Good News?
Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self
What Jesus Meant
When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life's Sacred Questions
The Lessons of Saint Francis: How to Bring Simplicity and Spirituality into Your Daily Life by John Michael Talbot Steve Rabey
Faith After Doubt: Why Your Beliefs Stopped Working and What to Do About It
Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas
Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People
Spiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith
The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind
Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness
An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
What's So Amazing About Grace?
Talking to the Ground: One Family's Journey on Horseback Across the Sacred Land of the Navajo
Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church
If God Is Love, Don't Be a Jerk: Finding a Faith That Makes Us Better Humans


Lee Ann's favorite books »