Not Fiction Book Discussion Titles for 2017

2017 is fast approaching, and along with it, a new list of recent nonfiction books for us to discuss.

The titles, posted on the right, have a loose connecting theme of place and time--how we know where and when--and who--we are. They investigate our sometimes contradictory desires to belong and to leave, to prevent change and to find out what-if. They capture the large view--our planet as a vast web of connections--and the small--a single blade of grass or a precise moment of time and light rendered in paint. They take us home and to work, through history and deep into culture. They explore family ties and friendship, places beloved and haunted. And our last book even considers our fascination with time travel.

Choose one and settle in for some cozy holiday reading. We hope to see you at the discussions next year.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed December's selection . . .

If you enjoyed M Train by Patti Smith, then you might also like these books suggested by our discussion group members: My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby, and City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg. And of course, you should read all of the books and authors Patti Smith alludes to in M Train, as well as her first autobiography, Just Kids.

December Not Fiction Book Discussions

“All I needed for the mind was to be led to new stations. All I needed for the heart was to visit a place of greater storms.”
--Patti Smith

We conclude our year of reading memoirs and biographies with M Train by Patti Smith. Our authors' topics--family, race, history, travel, ambition, vocation and avocation, longing and belonging, loss and mortality--reflected lives lived passionately in the present and recollected with hope and consolation. Smith says books are "portals of the world." When we pass through them, we can vicariously live lives we might otherwise have never known.

In M Train, we experience a recent year in the life of the "godmother of punk" who has the soul of a Romantic poet. Smith begins her narrative with a statement made by a figure from her dreams: "It's not so easy writing about nothing. . . . But we keep on going, he continued, fostering all kinds of crazy hopes. To redeem the lost, some sliver of personal revelation." Guided by her prose and photographs, we follow her pilgrimage among cafes, hotels, the houses and graves of beloved authors and artists, and fluidly through time from present to past to dream time. We get sometimes oblique, sometimes head-on and painfully honest glimpses of Smith's own great loves and losses. Along with her, we experience the simple consolation of a good cup of black coffee, a favorite detective show. Most importantly, we learn about Smith's truest calling as an author, one easy to overlook in the glare of her fame as a rock musician. She fills her own story with allusions to the stories of others, saying, "Writers and their process. Writers and their books. I cannot assume the reader will be familiar with them all, but in the end is the reader familiar with me? Does the reader wish to be so? I can only hope, as I offer my world on a platter filled with allusions. As one held by the stuffed bear in Tolstoy's house, an oval platter that was once overflowing with the names of callers, infamous and obscure, small carte de visite, many among the many."

What do you think? In the end, are you familiar with Smith? Did you find that you have any interests and experiences, hopes and consolations in common with her? What has been your truest calling in life? What pilgrimages have you made? What have you lost? What remains?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, December 6, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, December 15, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.

Keep up with Patti Smith at http://www.pattismith.net/intro.html.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed November's selection . . .

If you enjoyed Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl: A Memoir by Carrie Brownstein, then you might also like these books, films, and bands recommended by our discussion group members:

Books
Girl in a Band: A Memoir by Kim Gordon
Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin
Bossypants by Tina Fey

Films/TV shows
Almost Famous written and directed by Cameron Crowe
This is Spinal Tap directed by Rob Reiner
Portlandia produced and acted by Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen

Bands
Sonic Youth
Pearl Jam
Bikini Kill
The Ramones

November Not Fiction Book Discussions

Several of the memoirs we have read this year address the search for vocation and avocation, feelings of longing and belonging. Sally Mann found her place in the world through photography, William Finnegan through surfing, Gloria Steinem through community organizing, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg through law. In Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl: A Memoir, Carrie Brownstein explores how she found hers through music.

Brownstein is a guitarist in the group Sleater-Kinney, originally formed with guitarist Corin Tucker and eventually drummer Janet Weiss in the 1990s in Olympia, WA. Inspired by the feminist punk movement known as Riot Grrrl, Brownstein and Sleater-Kinney explore both personal and political topics, especially traditional gender roles and expectations. Like most musicians, Brownstein began her career as a fan with a longing to be part of a cohesive group and to be seen. She describes with insight and self-deprecating humor how her childhood in a family that was essentially uneasy with itself--her mother struggled with disordered eating and her father with his sexual orientation--led her to look outside herself at first for a sense of identity and belonging, performing to get attention. Eventually, over years of writing, performing, touring, managing the interpersonal dynamics of a band, and even, after over ten years and seven albums together, breaking up this band that had come to feel like her refuge and true home, Brownstein's performance becomes an expression of her complete and true self. She says, "I've always felt unclaimed. This is the story of the ways I created a territory, something more than just an archipelago of identities, something that could steady me, somewhere that I belonged." Sleater-Kinney reunited in 2014, after a six-year hiatus.

What do you think? Maybe you've never been (or wanted to be) in a punk band, one that music critic Greil Marcus called "the best rock band in the world" . . . but can you identify with Brownstein's quest for a sense of a cohesive identity, one that merges the inner experience of the dynamic, multifaceted self with the outer performance of the self we share in our family and professional lives? What is your passion in life? When did you discover it, and how did it help you to find and understand your place in the world? Was it a smooth process, or, like Brownstein, did your sense of self and belonging in the world evolve with uncertainty and sometimes even feelings of being lost or in despair?

Often who we become is strongly influenced by our time and place in the world. How did the Pacific Northwest of the 1990s help to shape Brownstein's search for self and the sound and lyrics of Sleater-Kinney? Are you surprised that Brownstein is still being asked what it feels like to be a woman in a band? That Spin magazine was more interested in her romantic relationship with Corin Tucker than in the music itself?

Brownstein is also a writer and performer in the television show Portlandia, a gently satirical portrayal of Portland, OR, and hipster culture. Do you see any connections in content or style between Sleater-Kinney, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, and Portlandia?

Watch Brownstein, Tucker, and Weiss perform Modern Girl, the song from which Brownstein drew the title of her memoir. How do you interpret the song?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, November 1, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, November 17, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed October's selection . . .

If you enjoyed The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee, then you might also like these books suggested by our discussion group members:

• Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War by Susan Southard
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
• Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
• The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed by Jessica Lahey 

October West Ashley Branch Not Fiction Book Discussion Cancelled

Charleston County Public Library's West Ashley Branch in South Windermere remains closed due to flood damage sustained during Hurricane Matthew. The Not Fiction Book Discussion scheduled for Thursday, October 20, has been cancelled.  The branch will reopen Tuesday, November 1.

October Not Fiction Book Discussions

This month we read The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee, a biography of "one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in the history of science: the 'gene,' the fundamental unit of heredity, and the basic unit of all biological information."

Mukherjee traces the history of the idea of the gene all the way back to its origins with Aristotle, Gregor Mendel, and Charles Darwin; through its dark manipulation in its early days by eugenicists; through the discovery of its essential action and form by James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, and Rosalind Franklin; to the technological ability to "read," "write," and "map" it with the Human Genome Project and the rapidly developing ability to "edit" it. He ends ultimately with the open-ended ethical questions raised by these abilities.

Which of the many philosophers, naturalists, and scientists who have contributed to our understanding of the gene did you find interesting? Why do you think some individuals' work was unnoticed or unrecognized at the time, such as Mendel's discovery of heredity and Franklin's work on the structure of DNA?

The genetic code is universal, but its variations are myriad. Our understanding of the gene alters our understanding of essential current political and cultural issues concerning race, sexuality, gender identity, sexual preference, intelligence, temperament, and free will. Mukherjee cautions throughout his book that the danger of the idea of the gene lies in our ability to rightly understand and use it: "The genome is only a mirror for the breadth or narrowness of human imagination. It is Narcissus reflected." What do you think? How has our understanding of the gene changed the political, cultural, and legal landscape of the world? Would it be better to limit or audit scientific research to prevent information being used to support morally questionable ideas? Or should unlimited scientific research be allowed and encouraged? What do you think our future will look like if we are unlimited in our ability to alter the human genome? According to a recent article on NPR's Morning Edition, developmental biologist Fredrik Lanner of Sweden has become the first researcher known to attempt to modify the genes of healthy human embryos in order to learn more about how genes regulate early embryonic development, with possible interventions in cases of infertility and miscarriage. What are the most pressing moral and ethical questions posed by current genetic research?

Mukerjee weaves in his own family's story throughout the book, showing the effects of severe mental illness on his uncles and nephew and the emotional repercussions for the whole family. How has his personal story helped you to understand the relevance of genetics to everyday life? Has reading The Gene made you reflect on yourself--your physical characteristics, your temperament, your health--and your own family's story?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, October 4, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, October 20, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed September's selection . . .

If you enjoyed Dear Mr. You by Mary-Louise Parker, then you might also like these books and films suggested by discussion group members, some for their use of the epistolary format or focus on letters as historical documents and some for their use of verse form or extremely short form:

• Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love by Dava Sobel
• Poor Folk by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore
• 84, Charing Cross Road book by Helene Hanff and movie with Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins
• Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
• The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis
• Art and the Intellect by Harold Taylor
• The Lake House movie with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves
• Brown Girl, Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
• The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis by Lydia Davis
• Ninety-Nine Stories of God by Joy Williams

September Not Fiction Book Discussions

Dear Mr. You by Mary-Louise Parker is another memoir--of sorts--written in the form of letters. Parker writes letters to men as a way of looking back at her life and the people she has encountered along the way who have made a difference in it. These men include those with whom she has had close relationships, such as her grandfather, her father, her son, her mentors, her friends and boyfriends, but also men with whom she had only a brief but significant encounter, such as a cab driver and a hospital orderly, and men she hasn't met, such as the future husband of her daughter. In a profile of Parker for LA Times, interviewer Joy Press reports that "Mary-Louise Parker never intended to write a memoir. In fact, she’s a little freaked that Dear Mr. You is being labeled as one. ‘I feel bad when people say memoir, because who writes a memoir that is only about how they were affected by one gender? The pieces are about me but also . . . not.’” Press notes, “Still, if you look closely at these letters, you’ll find a sidelong portrait of Parker, a mosaic of autobiographical shards.” We get a sense of Parker as a daughter, a mother, a friend, a romantic partner, a student, a professional actor, a writer, and a person making her way in the world.

According to an article in the Toronto Star, Parker and her agent submitted Dear Mr. You to publishers without her name attached.Unlike the publishers who read the manuscript of Dear Mr. You, we read Parker’s book knowing her as a celebrity. What do you expect from a celebrity memoir? Did Parker meet or break these expectations? Which letters stood out for you? Which surprised you? Delighted you? Disappointed you? Left you wanting more information? How does the letter format affect your perception of the stories Parker relates and of Parker herself? How would your perception of Parker and the events of her life differ if she had presented them in a more detailed, chronological, anecdotal narrative? In the profile of Parker for LA Times, Parker told interviewer Joy Press, “To me, this book is a collection of thank-you notes.” Take a moment to think: If you were tasked with writing a book like Dear Mr. You, to whom from your life would you write a thank you letter? Think especially of those people to whom you would not have said “thank you” at the time . . . Care to share?

We enjoyed the Tuesday, September 6, discussion! We hope you will join us Thursday, September 15, at 11:00 a.m. at the West Ashley Branch Library or here on the blog.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed August's selection . . .

If you enjoyed Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, then you might also like these books recommended by our discussion group members:

• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
• Men We Reaped: A Memoir by Jesmyn Ward
• The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League by Jeff Hobbs
• One Drop: My Father's Hidden Life--A Story of Race and Family Secrets by Bliss Broyard
• The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore
• Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family by Condoleeza Rice
• Passing: A  Novel by Nella Larson

August Not Fiction Book Discussions

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates is a memoir written in the form of a letter from an African American father to his adolescent son. Coates describes for his son his own coming of age and awakening of consciousness to his place in American history and culture. He also expresses his concerns for his son as he makes his way through a society that is still fraught with danger for African Americans. His work challenges all readers to contemplate our country's painful history of slavery and racism and our current civil rights crisis by considering what it is like to live in America in a black body, in a culture built upon the exploitation of black bodies.

Coates chose to write his memoir in the form of a letter to his son in the tradition of James Baldwin's Letter to My Nephew in his book The Fire the Next Time. Why do you think Coates chose this literary format? What was the effect for you of reading about Coates' life and thoughts on our history and culture through the intimate format of a letter addressed to his son?

Coates writes to his son, "When I was your age, the only people I knew were black, and all of them were powerfully, adamantly, dangerously afraid" (14). The title of the book, Between the World and Me, is taken from Richard Wright's poem of the same title. How did fear shape Coates' life and view of the world? Why do you think he chose this title for his book?

Coates argues in Between the World and Me that race, which has been such an important and controversial concept in American history and culture, is a flawed concept. He says, "Race is the child of racism, not the father" (7). How does discrediting the concept of race change how we understand our past and present?

Coates uses several terms that have been important in American culture and in the civil rights movement, the Dream and the Struggle, but he complicates and questions what they mean. What do the Dream and the Struggle come to mean to Coates? What connotations did these terms have for you before reading Coates' book? Has he complicated their meaning for you?

In Between the World and Me, Coates says, "I have spent much of my studies searching for the right question by which I might fully understand the breach between the world and me. . . . the questions matter as much, perhaps more than, the answers" (115-16). While Coates sees himself as a writer rather than an activist, critics of Between the World and Me have argued that because he is so well respected, he should attempt to offer answers to and provide hope for the troubling questions surrounding America's race relations. Do you think he holds any responsibility to offer answers, solve problems, or offer hope? Why or why not?

We hope you will join the discussion of one of the most timely and talked-about books this year: Tuesday, August 2, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, August 18, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed July's selection . . .

If you enjoyed Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik, then you might also like these podcasts, journal articles, books, and Tumblr blogs suggested by our discussion members:

Podcast

• More Perfect by Radiolab and WNYC Radio. "Supreme Court decisions shape everything from marriage and money to public safety and sex. We know these are very important decisions we should all pay attention to – but they often feel untouchable and even unknowable. Radiolab's first ever spin-off series, More Perfect, connects you to the decisions made inside the court's hallowed halls, and explains what those rulings mean for "we the people" who exist far from the bench. More Perfect bypasses the wonkiness and tells stories behind some of the court's biggest rulings."

Journal articles

• Jeffrey Toobin's articles about SCOTUS for the New Yorker, which can be found at www.newyorker.com/contributors/jeffrey-toobin.

Books

• The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court  and other titles by Jeffrey Toobin.
• Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World by Linda Hirshman.
• Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians V. The Supreme Court by Joyce Murdoch and Deb Price.
• The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong.

Tumblr blogs

• Ruth Bader Ginsburg: notoriousrbg.tumblr.com/
• Sonia Sotomayor: soniafromtheblock.tumblr.com/ 

July Not Fiction Book Discussions

This month we will consider a book that grew out of a new format for biography: Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik. Ginsburg is, of course, a member of SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States), the second woman ever appointed to that court.

Like Gloria Steinem, Ginsburg has become an icon of feminism for millennials, and the book Notorious RBG had it's first incarnation in an online format millennials are very comfortable with, the microblogging and social networking website Tumblr. After Ginsburg's dissent in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (2014), in which the majority ruled that Hobby Lobby, a privately held corporation, could deny birth control coverage to employees based on its owners' religious convictions, law student Shana Knizhnik created the Tumblr as a tribute to Ginsburg. It became popular internationally, with multiple contributions of images and texts. Harper Collins approached Knizhnik with the offer to create a book based on the Tumblr and brought in Irin Carmon, a noted feminist journalist, currently a commentator for MSNBC and formerly for online feminist publication Jezebel. While the book retains the informal feel of the Tumblr with humorous images and sidebars to the text, it also maintains a narrative structure that integrates Ginsburg's professional and personal lives as well as legal commentary on her most famous dissents.

Before reading this book, how much did you know about Ruth Bader Ginsburg? How would you describe RBG--personally, socially, professionally, politically? Carmon and Knizhnik note that Ginsburg has been very insistent in her written and spoken opinions over the years that her work is not just about women’s rights, it is about women’s and men’s liberation. Explain her philosophy as you see it. Would you call RBG a feminist? Carmon and Knizhnik also emphasize RBG’s incremental approach to the advancement of women’s rights, as opposed to what Charlotte Alter, an interviewer for TIME calls “the click-bait feminism of today’s internet.” In this interview, Carmon said, “Shana and I both fear the burnout of internet outrage culture,” which is “grounded in substantive concerns” but little conversation about “how should this movement move forward for sustainable change.” Knizhnik notes that much of RBG’s success comes from “framing conversations in such a way that will not alienate people who may not yet be on board.” What do you think of RBG’s incremental approach? Is it a useful technique? Will it continue to work in today’s online media culture and political outrage culture? Why do you think RBG resonates with people, especially the millennial generation? Knizhnik overtly connects Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Notorious BIG, aka Christopher George Latore Wallace (1972-1997), who is considered one of the most influential rappers in the history of the genre that is known for violent and misogynistic lyrics. In fact, the chapter titles are from titles of songs by Notorious BIG . . . Why is this a humorous comparison? Why is it also an apt one? How would you characterize this book? Reviewers have offered many suggestions: As a biography? A scrapbook? A vision board? (Julia Carpenter, Washington Post) Fan nonfiction? A variation on a contemporary feminist website like Jezebel? (Jennifer Senior, New York Times) Some original combination? It may be lighthearted in spirit, but it also asks to be read as a serious consideration of RBG's legacy. Do you think Carmon and Knizhnik get the mix right? What are the potential advantages of this format? What are the potential drawbacks?

We hope you'll join the discussion: Tuesday, July 5, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, July 21, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed June's selection . . .

If you enjoyed My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem, then you might also like these films and books suggested by our discussion members:

About Steinem:

• HBO documentary Gloria: In Her Own Words
• PBS documentary MAKERS: Women Who Make America
• The Education of a Woman: The Life of Gloria Steinem by Carolyn Heilbrun

Other titles

• Ain't I a Woman speech by Sojourner Truth at the Women's Convention, Akron, OH, May 29, 1851
• The Ladies of Seneca Falls: The Birth of the Women's Rights Movement by Miriam Gurko
• Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States by Eleanor Flexner
• When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins
• Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
• The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution
• by Jonathan Eig
• In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker
• We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Bad Feminist: Essays by Roxane Gay
• Bossypants by Tina Fey
• Yes, Please by Amy Poehler
• Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham
• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

June Not Fiction Book Discussions

My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem gives readers insight into how one of the iconic writers, lecturers, editors, and feminist activists of the twentieth century grew into her calling. It is also a call to readers to become agents of change in their own communities.

In a warm, anecdotal style, Steinem, now in her 80s, shares the experiences that led her to become an organizer. After more than four decades of work, she is still optimistic about people's ability to create meaningful change in their communities through listening and collaborating on shared solutions to problems. The essential feature of her life has been travel, and the road becomes a metaphor for the state of mind she wants to encourage her readers to adopt as well:

Taking to the road--by which I mean letting the road take you--changed who I thought I was. The road is messy in the way that real life is messy. It leads us out of denial and into reality, out of theory and into practice, out of caution and into action, out of statistics and into stories--in short, out of our heads and into our hearts.

While there are elements of autobiography in My Life on the Road, especially Steinem's stories about her itinerant childhood with her parents, this book concentrates on her career as an organizer and the professional lessons she has learned from it rather than her work as a writer and editor or the impact of her work on her life. What do you think of Steinem's focus? Did you enjoy learning about this particular aspect of her career? Was there more that you wanted to know about her life? What kind of person does she seem to be? And how did you like the anecdotal organization of her book? Did you find it conversational or a little disjointed? Have you ever participated in community organizing? How did your experience compare with Steinem's? Do you share her essential hopefulness?

Steinem has always found independent bookstores to be a resource for communal activism. In the spirit of "hand selling" books, she now keeps an occasional blog in which she recommends titles she has found inspiring and encourages readers to do the same. Visit it here and join the discussion.

We hope you will join our discussion, too: Tuesday, June 7, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, June 16, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed May's selection . . .

If you enjoyed Our Man in Charleston: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South by Christopher Dickey, then you might also like these books and films suggested by our discussion group members:

Books--Nonfiction
Junius and Albert's Adventures in the Confederacy: A Civil War Odyssey by Peter Carlson
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust
Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz
Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon
River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom by Walter Johnson
The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist
Empire of Cotton: A Global History by Sven Beckert
Lincoln and the Politics of Slavery: The Other Thirteenth Amendment and the Struggle to Save the Union by Daniel W. Crofts
Weevils in the Wheat: Interviews with Virginia Ex-Slaves by Charles L. Perdue and Thomas E. Barden
The Road to Disunion (2 vol.) by William W. Freehling
The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina: Pioneers for Women's Rights and Abolition by Gerda Lerner
Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery by Eric Metaxas

Books--Fiction
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth
Middle Passage by Charles Johnson

Films
Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North by produced and directed by Katrina Browne

May Not Fiction Book Discussions

Many of the world's great events are orchestrated as much by the quiet work of diplomats as by the heroic acts of high-ranking military and political officials. Our Man in Charleston: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South by Christopher Dickey tells the story of one such diplomat, Robert Bunch, the British consul in Charleston, SC, as the South seceded from from the Union and the Civil War ensued.

Dickey is the Paris-based world news editor for The Daily Beast. Previously he worked for The Daily Beast and Newsweek as Paris Bureau Chief and Middle East Editor, and before that for The Washington Post as Cairo Bureau Chief and Central America Bureau Chief. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Affairs. He is perhaps ideally suited to help readers identify with the work of foreign diplomats and correspondents, showing the adroitness, sensitivity, and forbearance required to represent the interests of one nation while living in another. Dickey portrays Bunch as "energetic and perceptive, with an acid wit when he was among those few people he genuinely took into his confidence, and his persistence could be annoying. An ambitious man, he had spent years maneuvering to get posted as Her Majesty's consul somewhere . . . " (p. 9). He landed in the hotbed of Southern secession, which was driven by the South's economic dependence on slavery and by its belligerent and maniacal insistence on the moral right of the institution of slavery. Bunch, "ever a mix of moralist and careerist" (p.99), possessed of a "sense of justice and of irony" (p. 326), despised the institution of slavery and his Charleston neighbors' complacent reliance upon it, yet he managed to live a double life, earning their trust and respect while sending intelligence back to Britain that would ultimately foil their plans to recruit the official support of Britain for the new Confederate government.

Regarding his choice of Bunch as his subject, Dickey told AMFM Magazine interviewer John Wisniewski,

In the person of Her Majesty’s Consul Robert Bunch, our man in Charleston, I discovered an outside observer writing secret and confidential dispatches that cut through the rationalizations about slavery, States’ rights and Southern civilization that many Americans still consider historical verities. He saw the mind of the South for what it was in 1860, and what he saw was deeply disturbing to him as, indeed, it should be to us.

What do you think? Did you come to understand something about the Civil War through Robert Bunch's point of view that you might not have learned otherwise? Does Bunch seem to you to be more of a moralist or more of a careerist? Would he have been as effective if he had been less of either? Did Bunch really make a crucial difference in the lead up to the Civil War? Boston Globe reviewer Matthew Price says,

On one level, Dickey has written a spicy historical beach read, chock-full of memorable characters and intrigue. But into this page-turning entertainment, Dickey has smuggled a thoughtful examination of the geopolitical issues of the day.

Did you enjoy reading Our Man in Charleston? What made it a good read for you?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, May 3, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, May 19, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed April's selection . . .

If you enjoyed Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell, then you might also like these books and television shows suggested by our discussion group members:

• Anything by Bill Bryson, David Sedaris, and Tina Fey for similar writing style.
• Young adult novels Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt and Johnny Tremaine by Esther Forbes.
• Narrative nonfiction history titles The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered by Laura Auricchio, 1776 by David McCullough, Miracle at Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention by Catherine Drinker Bowen, Letters from an American Farmer by  J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur, Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts, Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World by Maya Jasanoff, The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust, and The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War by David Laskin.
• AMC drama TURN: Washington's Spies and HBO miniseries John Adams.

Barbarian Days by William Finnegan wins Pulitzer Prize

Last month's book, Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan, one of our favorite books so far this year, has won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. If you haven't read it yet, now would be the perfect time! You can join the discussion on the blog.

Learn more about this year's winners.

April Not Fiction Book Discussions

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell is not just a factual account of the Marquis de Lafayette's years as a General in George Washington's army during the Revolutionary War; it is also a reflection on the concept of America as a collection of united states.

Vowell, bestselling author of unconventional books that combine history and social commentary, and former contributing editor to the public radio program This American Life, uses American history as a lens through which to view American contemporary culture and society. In this book, she tells the story of the wealthy young French aristocrat who, at the age of sixteen, decided to join the Patriots in their fight for independence from the British monarchy. She covers as well his return visit to the newly united states, as an elderly man, to high acclaim from large crowds, in 1824. She says of Lafayette,

The thing that drew me to Lafayette as a subject--that he was that rare object of agreement in the ironically named United States--kept me coming back to why that made him unique. Namely, that we the people have never agreed on much of anything. Other than a bipartisan consensus on barbecue and Meryl Streep, plus that time in 1942 when everyone from Bing Crosby to Oregonian schoolchildren heeded FDR's call to scrounge up rubber for the war effort, disunity is the through line in the national plot--not necessarily as a failing, but as a free people's privilege. And thanks to Lafayette and his cohorts in Washington's army, plus the king of France and his navy, not to mention the founding dreamers who clearly did not think through what happens every time one citizen's pursuit of happiness infuriates his neighbors, getting on each other's nerves is our right.

This passage is pure Vowell, blending accurate historical facts, pop cultural factoids, and pithy commentary with a cheeky, constructively critical tone. An interviewer for Slate, Jaime Green, noted, "Sometimes people think that veneration of the Founding Fathers and the American past is what patriotism is. As if to be patriotic is to celebrate and to worship." Vowell replied, "But our founders were really crabby people who were angry a lot of the time. I find it weirdly reassuring to think about these founders not as this wise generation that went extinct. They had their moments, and they certainly could do a lot worse, but they weren't perfect. . . . I think it's good to think about these overachievers' failures--their failures and their failings as men. That's when I identify with them." What do you think? Do you enjoy Vowell's approach to American history? Would you even call her work historical writing, or is it some other genre? Where would you shelve it at the bookstore or library? Do you like her writing style? If you are a fan of her spoken This American Life pieces, how do you think her longer written works compare?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, April 5, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, April 21, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.

Reminder: Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy, to speak tomorrow at the Sottile

One of the most troubling and yet inspiring books we read last year was Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. He will be speaking tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. at the Sottile Theatre as part of the Race and Social Justice Series hosted by the College of Charleston and the Avery Research Center. The event is free and open to the public. Click here for information.

We hope to see you there!

Readalikes: If you enjoyed March's selection . . .

If you enjoyed Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Flannagan, then you might also like these other books recommended by our discussion group members: The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey, My War Gone By, I Miss It So by Anthony Loyd, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and Moby Dick; or The Whale by Herman Melville.

March Not Fiction Book Discussions

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan is more than a memoir of a hobby or even an obsession; it is the story of one man's search for the meaning, purpose, and value of his very existence. Surfing is the vehicle for his existential quest.

Finnegan, a staff writer for The New Yorker and a contributor to other periodicals, has reported primarily on international conflicts and inequalities. In Barbarian Days, he examines with honesty and insight his passion for surfing. He has ridden some of the world's biggest waves--in California, Hawaii, the South Pacific islands, Australia, Indonesia, Asia, and Africa. Surfing is the constant as Finnegan moves down the line of his life, informing his development as a writer, a political thinker, a friend, a husband, and a father. After some of his initial, formative surfing experiences, he compares himself to Pip in Moby Dick, the cabin boy who jumps overboard and is rescued but has seen "God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad." This allusion evokes the themes of this great American novel, themes Finnegan also explores by examining his own life: duty and defiance, relationship and isolation, justice and inequality. Surfing, he says,

always had this horizon, this fear line, that made it different from other things, certainly from other sports I knew. You could do it with friends, but when the waves got big, or you got into trouble, there never seemed to be anyone around. Everything out there was disturbingly interlaced with everything else. Waves were the playing field. They were the goal. They were your adversary, your nemesis, even your mortal enemy. The surf was your refuge, your happy hiding place, but it was also a hostile wilderness--a dynamic, indifferent world. At thirteen, I had mostly stopped believing in God, but that was a new development, and it had left a hole in my world, a feeling that I'd been abandoned. The ocean was like an uncaring God, endlessly dangerous, power beyond measure. And yet you were expected, even as a kid, to take its measure every day. You were required--this was essential, a matter of survival--to know your limits, both physical and emotional. But how could you know your limits unless you tested them? And if you failed the test?

The young Finnegan sees in the best surfers on their best rides "long moments of grace under pressure that felt etched deep in my being: what I wanted, somehow, more than anything else."

What do you think? Do you have a long and complicated relationship with a dangerous activity? Why do you do it? What has it taught you about life? How did surfing open Finnegan's eyes to the world around him, especially its inequalities? Is there a correspondence between Finnegan's work as a war correspondent and his surfing? How does his relationship with surfing change over the years--physically, intellectually, ethically, spiritually? In the final pages of the book, Finnegan describes one of his last, manic days surfing Tavarua as an adult in what is perhaps another allusion to Moby Dick, to Ishmael's friendship with Queequeg. Inia, one of the boatmen who ferry Finnegan out to the waves, takes Finnegan under his care after a wave leaves him stunned and coughing blood. Inia is both a practical master of local wave knowledge and a lay preacher. He invites Finnegan to rely on his judgement, and he asks him directly about his trust in God's love. What does Finnegan learn from this encounter? How does Finnegan resolve his relationship with the fear line of his life? Does he find what he's been looking for?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, March 1, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, March 17, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed February's selection . . .

If you enjoyed Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann, then you might also like to read a couple of authors who Mann says influenced her photography and her writing, Marcel Proust and William Faulkner. You might also enjoy several books recommended by our discussion group members: On Photography by Susan Sontag, described by Sontag as "a progress of essays about the meaning and career of photographs"; Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher by Timothy Egan about American Indian portrait photographer Edward Curtis; and Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, a novel set among the mountains and farms of southern Appalachia. And if you want to learn more about Mann and her art, check out the two award-nominated documentaries about her work, Blood Ties and What Remains.

February Not Fiction Book Discussions

In Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs, Sally Mann looks back over her life's work as a photographer for its sources in family, place, and mortality.

Asked to deliver the Massey Lectures in the History of American Civilization at Harvard, Mann notes that "My long preoccupation with the treachery of memory has convinced me that I have fewer and more imperfect recollections of childhood than most people," so she turned to the boxes of family papers in her attic and to the social and cultural history of the rural South where she grew up. She says, "I will confess that in the interest of narrative I secretly hoped I'd find a payload of southern gothic: deceit and scandal, alcoholism, domestic abuse, car crashes, bogeymen, clandestine affairs, dearly loved and disputed family land, abandonments, blow jobs, suicides, hidden addictions, the tragically early death of a beautiful bride, racial complications, vast sums of money made and lost, the return of a prodigal son, and maybe even bloody murder. . . . And I did: all of it and more." Lively with incident, conversational and confessional in tone, Mann's memoir makes the reader feels as if she is having a conversation with Mann in her studio or walking with her on her beloved family farm in Virginia.

Mann's photographs are unconventional, and some would even call them controversial. In her photographic projects over the years, she has depicted her family's most intimate moments, her husband's body reduced by muscular dystrophy, the Southern landscape, dead and decomposing bodies, Civil War battlefields, and Black men. Acknowledging the inherently exploitative and reductive nature of photographs, Mann says of her work, "In general, I am past taking pictures for the sake of seeing how things look in a photograph, although sometimes for fun, I still do that. These days I am more interested in photographing things either to understand what they mean in my life or to illustrate a concept."And to viewers' shocked or judgmental reaction to her work, Mann responds, "How can a sentient person of the modern age mistake photography for reality? All perception is selection, and all photographs--no matter how objectively journalistic the photographer's intent--exclude aspects of the moment's complexity. Photographs economize the truth; they are always moments more or less illusorily abducted from time's continuum." Mann's photographs can be compelling, both beautiful and disturbing, calling up for the viewer unexamined aspects of their lives and the society and culture they live in.

Asked to account for her artistic interests and vision, Mann says, "As for me, I see both the beauty and the dark side of things . . . And I see them at the same time, at once ecstatic at the beauty of things, and chary of that ecstasy. The Japanese have a phrase for this dual perception: mono no aware. It means 'beauty tinged with sadness,' for there cannot be any  real beauty without the indolic whiff of decay. For me, living is the same thin as dying, and loving is the same thing as losing, and this does not make me a madwoman; I believe it can make me better at living, and better at loving, and just possibly, better at seeing." What do you think? What does Mann's memoir help you understand about her photographic works? If you had seen the photographs without benefit of the memoir, what would you have thought of them? What do you think of her understanding of the purpose of photography as a means of exploration rather than ornamental depiction? Is this a new concept for you? Do any of her photographs compel you, disturb you, or maybe both? Why do you think that is? How do you interpret the title of Mann's memoir, Hold Still? Do you agree that photographs essentially exploit their subjects and compromise memory? Have you found this to be true in your life? How has the use of photography in society and culture changed over the course of your life?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, February 2, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, February 18, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed January's selection . . .

If you enjoyed H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, then you might also like these suggestions for further reading from Macdonald's publisher, Grove Atlantic: The Goshawk and The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White; The Peregrine by J. A. Baker; A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines; The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes by Peter Matthiessen; The Bird Artist: A Novel by Howard Norman; and Life List: A Woman's Quest for the World's Most Amazing Birds by Olivia Gentile.

Check out these other memoirs about grief: A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights by Joan Didion, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed, Son of a Gun: A Memoir by Justin St. Germain, and The Long Goodbye by Meghan O'Rourke.

And these books take an honest look at death and dying: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty.

And finally, here are two suggestions for inspiring nature reading from discussion group members:
Raven Seek Thy Brother by Gavin Maxwell and The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen.

January Not Fiction Book Discussion

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald explores that most universal of human experiences, grieving the loss of a loved one. "It happens to everyone," she writes. "But you feel it alone." Macdonald's father died suddenly of a heart attack on a London street at a time when her personal life and career were in transition, and to manage her grief and sense of being untethered, Macdonald turned to her lifelong avocation of falconry. She chose, however, to train the most notoriously difficult and lethal raptor, a goshawk. Macdonald goes beyond mere interest or distraction to very near the edge of obsession, unplugging her telephone and asking her friends to leave her alone while she trains her hawk. In its wildness, it represents for Macdonald immunity from loss and grief: "The hawk was everything I wanted to be: solitary, self-possessed, free from grief and numb to the hurts of human life." Yet she names her hawk Mabel, meaning lovable or dear, and Mabel gradually teaches Macdonald how to reconnect with the world around her through curiosity, radical empathy, and the desire to nurture the young hawk. In the moment of naming her, Macdonald notes, "And as I say it, it strikes me that all those people outside the window who shop and walk and cycle and go home and eat and love and sleep and dream--all of them have names. And so do I. 'Helen,' I say." How does Macdonald ultimately resolve the paradox posed by her grief?

H is for Hawk includes precise and evocative nature writing. Through her descriptions of Mabel the bird rather than Mabel the myth, Macdonald asks us to reconsider our relationship with the wild. She notes that many nature books and myths of human-to-animal metamorphoses were "quests inspired by grief or sadness" in which, to heal their hurt, humans fled to the wild. Macdonald realizes, however, that this is "a beguiling but dangerous lie . . . the wild is not a panacea for the human soul . . . I'd fled to become a hawk, but in my misery all I had done was turn the hawk into a mirror of me." Where do you think this persistent literary idea of the wild as a healing force comes from? What are its positive and negative influences on our relationship with our environment?

Macdonald also includes bibliomemoir/biography in H is for Hawk, exploring her relationship to T.H. White's book The Goshawk, which she first read at the age of eight. In it, White describes his own unsuccessful and inadvertently cruel attempt to train a goshawk. She initially dislikes the book, wondering, "Why would a grown-up write about not being able to do something?" But she feels compelled to reread his book and wrestle with his example. "The book you are reading is my story," she writes, " . . . It is not a biography of Terence Hanbury White. But White is a part of my story all the same. I have to write about him because he was there." How does Macdonald's understanding of White's book evolve over time, and how does his story inform her own?

In an interview for Guernica Aditi Sriram asked Macdonald what story "wanted to be told" when she sat down to write H is for Hawk. She replied, "I wanted it to be a memoir about grief, certainly. In England there is this notion of the 'misery memoir' as a genre, the 'misery lit' genre. And I’m really happy for it to be seen as that, because it was a very miserable time. But I also wanted it to be nature writing, and I wanted it to be a biography. Having all those three genres in one book was a very definite decision I made. What grief does is shatter narratives: the stories you tell about your life, they all crumble at this point. Things become very confused, your agency is called into question, you’re not really sure who you are or what you’re facing, and I wanted that confusion to be in the text." How do you feel about Macdonald's decision to combine three genres in one narrative? Is it successful?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, January 5, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, January 21, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.

Not Fiction Book Discussion titles for 2016

“All I needed for the mind was to be led to new stations. All I needed for the heart was to visit a place of greater storms.”

“In my way of thinking, anything is possible. Life is at the bottom of things and belief at the top, while the creative impulse, dwelling in the center, informs all.”

― Patti Smith, M Train

In 2016 we will be reading memoirs and biographies, the two genres of nonfiction that have been most popular with discussion group members over the years. Several of this year's titles feature an interesting interplay between word and image, and several use an epistolary format, offering us the chance to consider how we narrate our lives through many kinds of texts. Our authors' topics--family, race, history, travel, ambition, vocation and avocation, longing and belonging, loss and mortality--reflect lives lived passionately in the present and recollected with hope and consolation.

We hope you will join us! See the titles and dates posted on the right side of this page.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed December's selection . . .

If you enjoyed My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead, then you might also like these books recommended by Mead. If you like bibliomemoirs, then check out these books Mead read while working on her book: Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D. H. Lawrence by Geoff Dyer, Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece by Michael Gorra, The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them by Elif Batuman, To the River: A Journey Beneath the Surface by Olivia Lang, Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life by Adam Gopnik, How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell. And here are Mead's six six favorite books that illuminate the Victorian era: Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey, Parallel Lives by Phyllis Rose, Possession by A.S. Byatt, Angels and Ages by Adam Gopnik, Gross Indecency by Moisés Kaufman, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry.