October CultureCAT: Non-Mainstream Christian Religious Subcultures (Amish, Quakers, Mennonites, or Church of the Breth

Amish:
A History of the Amish by Steven M. Nolt (most current edition: probably 3rd, 2016)
Amish Society by John Hostetler (a classic, but probably most recent edition 1993)
One Light Still Shines: My Life Beyond the Shadow of the Amish Schoolhouse Shooting by Marie Monville (wife of man who killed the Amish school children in 2018)

Quakers:
A Procession of Friends: Quakers in America by Daisy Newman (nonfiction)
Friends for 350 Years by Margaret Hope Bacon; revised edition of Friends for 300 Years by Howard H. Brinton (nonfiction)
Plain Language: a Novel by Barbara Wright
I Take Thee, Serenity by Daisy Newman (one of my favorite novels)

Mennonites:
Plain; A memoir of Mennonite Girlhood by Mary Alice Hostetter
The Measure of a Life: Diaries of a Mennonite Farm Wife, 1920-2000 by Ruth Martin Hostetter; edited by Mary Alice Hostetter

Church of the Brethren:
Two Centuries of the Church of the Brethren; or, The Beginnings of the Brotherhood by Brethren Church History

Shakers:
The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother's Extraordinary Fight Against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times by Ilyon Woo

Mormons:
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover

I think I picked out something about Mennonites...
Every Little Scrap and Wonder / Carla Funk

Ok to go with the Shakers?

>3 Tess_W: Fine

I'm going to read The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother's Extraordinary Fight Against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times by Illyon Woo. I became interested in studying the Shakers when I visited Watervliet Shaker Historic District in Colonie, NY and the Mt. Lebanon Shaker Village also in New York.

I completed The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother's Extraordinary Fight Against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times by Ilyon Woo This non-fiction was the story of Eunice Chapman who was in a bitter conflict with her husband after he abducted their three children and joined the Shakers in the early 1800's in Watervliet, New York. Great read! 416 pages 4.5 stars

Just a heads-up that I have created the 2026 Category Challenge group: https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/24919/2026-Category-Challenge. Stop by to get a head start on planning next year's challenge!

(Cross-posted to a bunch of threads; sorry if you see this a thousand times!)

I read The Public Universal Friend: Jemima Wilkinson and Religious Enthusiasm in Revolutionary America, about a former Quaker who started a new Christian religious movement around the time of the American Revolution. It was interesting to learn more about this gender-variant historical figure, but the writing is pretty dry, and it feels like the author is really stretching a modest amount of material/sources to get to a full book length, so it's kind of repetitive.

I chose this book for October's CultureCAT, but am realising now that Mormons weren't on the list. I'll share my review anyway.

Educated

A moving account of survival from a childhood of religious extremity, shocking neglect, and familial abuse, to independence and education. Westover worked hard and combatted a terrible start to get to where she is today. Inspiring to any survivor of abuse, hers is a story of what can come when we learn to trust ourselves and connect to the world around us.

>11 GraceCollection:. Fine to count it in this challenge. Another reader has already read a book about the Shakers who also were not on the list.

I've added both the Shakers and Mormons to the list.