Purpose

The purpose of the book club is to select, read, and discuss nonfiction and fiction books that inspire, challenge, entertain and educate.

Our Main Activities

• About once per year, each member submits the names of three books (fiction or nonfiction) with brief descriptions; submissions are compiled and members vote for one of the three via email, selecting one book per month based on majority vote.
• The group meets every other month, typically over  Zoom, to discuss the latest book selection; not all group members host meetings.
• Each discussion is facilitated by the member who recommended that book.

What is the typical time commitment for group members? When and how often does the group meet?
The discussions typically last 60 minutes and meet at 6:30 pm on a Sunday; specific dates are selected by group members based on availability. Members are expected to have read the book prior to the discussion.

Who would a UU friend or member contact to learn more about the group?
Contact: Phil Turner (connection@uucc.org)

What Books Has the Group Read?

Month/Year              Book        

2024
February 18, 2024 I NEVER THOUGHT OF IT THAT WAY: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times, by Mónica Guzmán.
April 21, 2024 The Sum of Us (Adapted for young readers): How Racism Hurts Everyone, By Heather McGhee
June 16, 2024 Public Morality and the Culture Wars: The Triple Divide by Bryan Fanning
August 18, 2024 Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About People We Don’t Know, By Malcom Gladwell
October 20, 2024 Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical  Right’s Stealth Plan for America, by Nancy MacLean
December 15, 2024 The Years, by Annie Ernaux

2023
February 2023 Is Science Enough? Forty Critical Questions About Climate Justice, By Aviva Chomsky
April 2023 Rationality. What it is. Why it seems scarce, Why it matters By Steven Pinker
June 2023 What the Dog Saw, by Malcolm Gladwell
August 2023 Think Again: The Power of Knowing What you Don’t Know  by Adam Grant
October 2023 Wokism: How a New Religion has Betrayed Black America, By John McWhorter
December 2023 The Nature of Nature, by Erik Sala

2022
January 2022 Why We’re are Polarized.  By Ezra Klein
February 2022 Blue Sky God: The Evolution of Science and Christianity by Don MacGregor
March 2022 Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything by Viktor Frankl,
April 2022 The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another by Ainissa Ramirez
May 2022 Wild” by Cheryl Strayed
June 2022 The Brilliant Abyss: Exploring the Majestic Hidden Life of the Deep Ocean, and the Looming Threat That Imperils It. By Helen Scales
July 2022 Underground – A Human History of the World Beneath Our Feet.  by Will Hunt
August 2022 Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody by Helen Pluckrose and James A. Lindsay

2021
January 2021    His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope:   by Jon Meacham
February 2021  Dreaming of Eden: American Religion and Politics in a Wired World – by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite
March 2021  Who Do We Choose to Be?: Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity – by Margaret Wheatley
April 2021  Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent- by Isabel Wilkerson
May 2021  Ten Lessons for a Post Pandemic World- by Fareed Zakaria
June 2021  Begin Again- James Baldwin’s America and its Urgent Lessons for Our Own– by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr
July 2021  Across Islands and Oceans-  by James Baldwin
August 2021  The Coming Good Society: Why New Realities Demand New Rights– by William F. Schulz and Sushma Raman,
October 2021    Last Best Hope  by George Packer
November 2021   The Poet of Tolstoy Park  by Sonny Brewer

2020
February  2020   There Will Be No Miracles Here: A Memoir by Casey Gerald
March 2020         God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State by Lawrence Wright
April  2020           Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing, and Dying by Ram Dass
May  2020             The Forest Unseen, A Year’s Watch in Nature   2012 by David George Haskell.
June 2020             Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, by Hans Rosling
July  2020   The Bright Hour. A Memoir of Living and Dying by Nina Riggs
August 2020         The Education of An Idealist by Samantha Power
September 2020  Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society by Nicholas A Christakis
October 2020        Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth By Rachel Maddow
November 2020  This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor, by Adam Kay.

2019
January 2019       Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
February 2019    The Darker the Night, the Brighter the Stars. A Neuropsychologist’s Odyssey Through Consciousness by Paul Broks
March 2019        The Righteous Mind: Why good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt (Yes, it’s been done before)
April 2019    American Wolf by Nate Blakeslee
May 2019       Beloved: A Novel by Toni Morrison
June 2019      Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker
July 2019        Losing Moses on the Freeway: The Ten Commandments in America (2005),by Chris Hedges
August 2019    The Soul of America by John Meecham
September 2019    Why Religion? By Elaine Pagels
October 2019      The Diary of a Bookseller, 2017, by Shaun Bythell
November 2019   The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution by David Wooten

2018
January 2018           Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild
February 2018         God: A Human History by Reza Aslan
March 2018              Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
April 2018                Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living by Krista Tippet
May 2018                 I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong
June 2018               Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
July 2018                  Hell by Robert Olen Butler
August 2018             The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters by Tom Nichols
September 2018    American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis
October 2018          We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates
November 2018      Hidden Figures:  The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

2017
January 2017           H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
February 2017        And Yet by Christopher Hitchens
March 2017              The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction by Mark Lilla
April 2017                The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
May 2017                  Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson
June 2017                 The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker
July 2017                  Tea at the Cavendish by Ronald D. Edge
August 2017            Five Easy Theses: Commonsense Solutions to America’s Greatest Economic Challenges by James Stone
September 2017     Alexander Hamilton by Ron Cherow
October 2017           Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives
by James H. Fowler
November 2017      Hillbilly Elegy A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance

2016
January 2016             Musicophilia. Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks
February 2016          Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence by Karen Armstrong
March 2016               The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, The CIA And The Rise Of America’s Secret Government by David Talbot
April 2016                 A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong
May 2016                   Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
June 2016                 What to Think About Machines That Think by John Brockman, ed.,
July 2016                  The Boys in the Boat:  Nine American and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown
August 2016             Sapiens : a brief history of humankind by Yuval N. Harari
September 2016     Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
October 2016          Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help by Larissa MacFarquhar
November 2016      Lies my Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen

2015
January 2015             Darwin and His Children: His Other Legacy by Tim M. Berra
February 2015          Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty
March 2015               The Battle Over Hetch Hetchy by Robert W. Righter
April 2015                   Moral Imagination: Essays by David Bromwich
May 2015                    Life After Death: The Burden of Proof by Deepak Chopra
June 2015                   Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel C. Dennett
July  2015                   The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman by Margot Miffli
August 2015              The Demon-haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
September 2015       A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
October 2015            Catherine The Great by Robert K. Massi
November 2015        The Meaning of Human Existence by E.O. Wilson

2014
January 2014             Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man by Christopher Hitchens
February 2014          Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
April 2014                  Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
June 2014                   Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul by Giulio Tononi
July 2014                    The 50 Funniest American Writers, According to Andy Borowitz.
August 2014              Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain,
September 2014       Subliminal. How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior by Leonard Mlodinow.
October 2014            Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
November 2014        The Social Animal by David Brooks

2013
January 2013             Lies Across America (What our historic sites get wrong) by James Loewen
February 2013          The signal and the noise: why so many predictions fail — but some don’t by Nate Silver
March 2013                How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of character by Paul Tough
April 2013                  The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
May 2013                    Lincoln’s Melancholy  by Wolf Shenk
June 2013                   Why Does the World Exist?  An Existential Detective Story by Jim Holt
July 2013                     Longitude, The true story of a lone genius who solved the greatest scientific problem of his time by Dava Sobel
August 2013              Life of Pi by Yann Martel
September 2013       Hitler’s Willing Executioners-Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Jonah
October 2013            Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin
November 2013        The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece by Jonathan Harr
December 2013        Contagious Why things Catch On by Jonah Berger

2012
July 2012                    Drift (the unmooring of American Military Power) by Rachel Maddow
August 2012              The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks  by Rebecca Skloot
September 2012       The Universe in a Single Atom. The Convergence of Science and Spirituality by the Dalai Lama
October 2012            God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens
November 2012        The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
December 2012        The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran