Not Fiction Book Discussion Titles for 2020

I began to realize that all my life I've been leaving myself breadcrumbs. It didn't matter that I didn't always know what I was walking toward. It was worthwhile, I told myself, just trying to see clearly, even if it took me years to understand what I was trying to see.  -- Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion

Looking for something engrossing and inspiring to read over the holidays? Check out the list of titles for discussion in 2020, posted on the right. All share a powerful theme of bearing witness, whether it be to our current cultural and political moment or to an event that occurred decades ago, to our own thoughts and experiences or to those of others. Bearing witness is essentially why we write and why we read.

We hope you will join the discussions: The first Tuesday of the month at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library (although in November we will meet on the second Tuesday of the month so that you can go bear witness by voting on Election Day); the third Thursday of the month at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.

December Not Fiction Book Discussions

The Library Book by Susan Orlean is classic Orlean. As with The Orchid Thief and Rin Tin Tin, she starts with a complicated individual, Harry Peak, the young man accused of starting the devastating 1986 fire that destroyed or damaged more than a million books at Los Angeles' Central Library, and ends with a sprawling exploration of a larger topic, libraries and their place in our culture and society. Orlean told Writer's Digest, "When I heard about the fire, I was so fascinated. The two categories of story that I cannot resist are, one, the examination of something that seems very familiar but that I realize I don't really know anything about. And that was definitely present in this story. And secondly, the discovery of a big story or subculture that I never knew existed, and that was true of the fire. So this combined the two genres of story that I find almost irresistible. The so familiar that you don't notice it, and so hidden that it's a discovery."

And as with a The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson, which we read earlier this year, Orlean does not definitively solve the mystery she set out to investigate. In the end, to Orlean, whether Peak started the fire or not is less important than his desire to be remembered, which to her is the essence of why we write, read, and create libraries. In fact, what led Orlean to this story were her memories of visiting the library with her mother when she was a child and her present-day visits to the library with her own son. She told Writer's Digest that her biggest challenge in writing The Library Book was structure: "In this case, I realized I was essentially working on four storylines. And the challenge was, how do I make these live together naturally and happily within a book? I had the history of the library. I had the story of the fire, which was a totally different time period. I had the day-to-day life of the library, which I very much wanted to write about. And I had this more meditative storyline of what do libraries mean, what is their importance, what has been their importance? So how do you put those together?"

What do you think? Is Orlean successful in integrating these four storylines and bringing the seemingly familiar, the public library, to life in a new way? What has your relationship with libraries been throughout your life? What are some of your favorite library memories? As Orlean vividly portrays, libraries are so much more that just warehouses of books. How have libraries changed in your lifetime and in your community? How do you feel about these changes? Andrew Carnegie is the most famous benefactor of libraries, and other benefactors have similarly supported museums or parks or other community spaces. Do you think it is more important to have wealthy benefactors or overall community support? Are libraries indicative of the vitality and mindset of a community or culture? Do they have a role and responsibility in creating this vitality and mindset? In Chapter 30, Orlean discusses a variety of initiatives undertaken by libraries and librarians around the world. Are there any that you would like to see replicated at your public library?

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

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

If you enjoyed Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over by Nell Painter, then you might also enjoy these books and films suggested by our discussion group members:

Books

• Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (In That Order) by Bridget Quinn
• If You Can Doodle, You Can Paint: Transforming Simple Drawings Into Works of Art by Diane Culhane

Films

• Art documentaries on Netflix

Book recommended by Nell Painter in an interview with her publisher, Counterpoint

• Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland

November Not Fiction Book Discussions

We continue our theme of education with Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over by Nell Painter. Following her retirement from her career as a historian at Princeton University, Dr. Nell Painter surprised everyone in her life by returning to school in her sixties to earn a BFA and MFA in painting. An interviewer with her publisher, Counterpoint, asked Painter, “How did you come to write this book? What’s the story of this story?” She replied, “The notion of writing about my experience(s) in art school came very early on, even before I enrolled at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, for my friends voiced curiosity as soon as they discovered my musings. At first it was the novelty of a chaired professor at Princeton climbing down from what seemed like the pinnacle of scholarly achievement—the strangeness of that turning away intrigued people. Then it was asking about what was new. In either case, people I knew wanted me to send back reports from my new life. Old in Art School is that report. Old in Art School speaks a tiny bit about the leaving, but mainly it’s about what the title says: being old in a world obsessed with youth, with what one of my teachers called right-nowness. That’s a challenge when you’re starting out at sixty-four with twentieth-century eyes.” Painter's story asks us to consider how artists, and women artists in particular, are seen and judged by their age, looks, and race. 

What do you think? Have you "started over" or dreamed of "starting over" in your career or general life path? Have you experienced any discouragement, either stated or implied? How did that affect you? What influence did Painter's mother's example have on her own decision to leave her academic career at its pinnacle and start over in art school? Painter titles Chapter 11 "A Bad Decision." Why did Painter decide to leave Mason Gross School of the Arts before completing a full four years there? Why does she think going to graduate school at Rhode Island School of Design before completing her time at Mason and maybe even taking a few years off was a bad decision? Do you think it was a bad decision, or did it perversely have a positive effect on Painter's trajectory as an artist? Of the various "-isms" Painter experienced, which do you think were the most damaging to her confidence in her own vision and execution of her art? How did her own cohort's opinion of her art contrast with that of her art teachers and peers? How did Painter's summer alone with her work in the Adirondacks influence her work and sense of herself as an artist? What is art? Who is an artist? Who gets to decide? 

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, November 5, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library or Thursday, November 21, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library.

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

If you enjoyed Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, then you might also enjoy these books and television series suggested by our discussion group members:

Books:
Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Laura Fraser
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder
Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over by Nell Painter
Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls

Television Series:
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt created by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock
Country Music: A Film by Ken Burns

October Not Fiction Book Discussions

Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, one of the most read and discussed books of the year, asks us to consider what it means to be educated.

Born to a family of Mormons who embrace a survivalist worldview and distrust, among other things, public schools, Westover had little formal education of any kind as a child. She worked for her mother's herbal supplement and midwifing businesses and her father's scrapping business until a brother who had left home for college encouraged her to study for the ACT. Westover passed and was accepted to Brigham Young University at the age of 16. Westover performed brilliantly academically, and ultimately earned graduate degrees from Cambridge and a fellowship at Harvard. Yet Westover's steepest learning curve was less academic than social, cultural, and emotional as she outgrew her family's world on Buck's Peak in rural Idaho.

What do you think? Have you ever outgrown a world or worldview? What sparked that learning curve? Did you have to make difficult choices? In pursuit of her academic and personal education, Westover endured active opposition from her father, demeaning abuse from her brother, mixed messages from her mother, a limiting view of women's place in the world from her religion, and, initially, suffered from limited cultural intelligence. Why do you think she was able to persevere? What personal qualities contributed to her success? Ironically, did those same qualities also limit her in some ways? Crucial to most people's education are the mentors and guides we meet along the way. Who do you think was important to Westover's education? In addition to books and lectures, we also learn from experiences. Which life experiences had the most impact on Westover? At Cambridge, Westover attends a lecture about Isaiah Berlin's concept of negative versus positive liberty, a concept reiterated to her in the lyrics of a Bob Marley song. How did these two very different texts help Westover to understand her education? Westover wrote her memoir at a relatively young age, close in time and emotion to the experiences depicted. Why do you think she chose to write it at this time of her life? Do you think it would differ if she wrote it at a later point in her life? How?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, October 1, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, October 17, 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 Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and The Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy, then you might also enjoy these books recommended by Macy:

• In Pain: A Bioethicist's Personal Struggle with Opioids by Travis N. Rieder
• Drug Dealer, MD: How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It's So Hard to Stop by Anna Lembke, MD
• The Big Fix: Hope After Heroin by Tracey Helton Mitchell
• The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison
• If You Love Me: A Mother's Journey Through Her Daughter's Opioid Addiction by Maureen Cavanagh
• American Overdose: The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts by Chris McGreal
• Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town by Brian Alexander
• What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte
• Trampoline and Weedeater, illustrated novels by Robert Gipe
• Ohio, a novel by Stephen Markley
• Cherry, a novel by Nico Walker
• I Know Your Kind, poems by William Brewer

Macy's follow-up to Dopesick:

• Audible Original Finding Tess:A Mother's Search for Answers in a Dopesick America

And these articles and videos suggested by our discussion group members:

• Wall Street Journal article Schism in the House of Sackler by Jared S. Hopkins July 13, 2019 print edition
• Opioids and Opioids II segments from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, available on YouTube

September Not Fiction Book Discussions

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy is a perfect example of how narrative nonfiction can help us to better understand current events by providing the in-depth stories necessary for us to identify with the people behind the headlines.

Just this week, Purdue Pharma filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in an effort to shield itself and its owners, the Sackler family, one of the richest families in America, from over 2,600 federal and state lawsuits concerning their role in America's opioid addiction epidemic. It is estimated that at its peak, over 100 people died every day of opioid drug overdoses, and Macy describes the devastating effects of addiction on these individuals, their families, and their communities. In fact, Beth Macy's clear-eyed and compassionate reporting may be in part responsible for a growing awareness of the extent and causes of the crisis. Although it is a sobering, infuriating, and heartbreaking read, Dopesick is also inspiring because Macy profiles individuals who have devoted their lives to raising awareness about and combating the epidemic, and she provides an overview of the different treatment protocols and of different models of community response.

What do you think? Before reading Dopesick, were you aware of the extent to which the opioid addiction epidemic had spread in America? Do you know someone actively experiencing or recovering from addiction? How does Dopesick help you to understand what they and their families are going through? To what degree do you think Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, and other pharmaceutical companies should be held responsible for the opioid addiction epidemic? To what degree should the Sackler family be held responsible? Within the addiction treatment community, there are two very different approaches to treatment, abstinence and medicine-assisted therapy, and, in general, effective and affordable treatment is difficult to find. What were your thoughts about the nature of addiction and its treatment before reading Dopesick? Have they changed? What strategies--legal, medical, cultural--would you suggest? Macy profiles a large number of people touched either personally or professionally by the opioid addiction epidemic. Which stories of loss and grief, of personal and professional responsibility or irresponsibility, of self-sacrifice or greed most moved you? Why? Macy both profiles specific individuals and provides an overview of the crisis. Does she manage to integrate both the intimate and the broad view successfully? Does Dopesick end on a note of hope or of despair? Are you optimistic or pessimistic about our collective will to find solutions?

We hope you will join the discussion: Thursday, September 19 at 11:00 a.m. and here on the blog.

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

If you enjoyed How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan, then you might also enjoy these books suggested by our discussion group members:

Outside Looking In: A Novel by T. C. Boyle
Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality by Barbara Bradley Hagerty
The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream by Hunter S. Thompson
A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life by Ayelet Waldman

And check out this fabulous list of resources, including further reading and viewing, on Michael Pollan's website: https://michaelpollan.com/resources/psychedelics-resources/.

August Not Fiction Book Discussions

With How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food, Food Rules, and Cooked, shifts his focus from how we might best feed our bodies to how we could, to paraphrase Jefferson Airplane, feed our heads.

Pollan admits that he is a philosophical materialist and "less a child of the psychedelic 1960s than of the moral panic that psychedelics provoked," yet he was intrigued by research that shows these substances can aid those experiencing addiction, depression, trauma, chronic pain, and the existential fear of dying. He blends incisive journalism and candid memoir to explore the history, politics, science, and potential medical uses of psychedelics as well as his own "ineffable" personal experience of psilocybin, LSD, and 5-MeO-DMT. He discovers that, in a carefully controlled environment, with the aid of psychedelics, we can temporarily experience life without the filter of the default mode network of our brain, which relies on habit to help us efficiently navigate the world. Without this filter, we can literally expand our consciousness, cultivating what Pollan thinks of as neural diversity.

What do you think? What were your thoughts and feelings about psychedelics, Timothy Leary, and the 1960s "turn on, tune in, drop out" culture before reading Pollan's book? Have you changed your mind? How? Considering their potential benefits and risks, should psychedelics be regulated for medical use? Should they be available for recreational use? Pollan includes his thoughts and feelings about psychedelics and his own experience with them in his narrative. How did this affect your understanding of the topic? Did he adequately explain both the scientific technicalities and the "ineffable" quality of the experience itself? Pollan notes that there is "a universal desire to change consciousness" and that "[o]ne of the things that commends travel, art, nature, work, and certain drugs to us is the way these experiences, at their best, block every mental path forward and back, immersing us in the flow of a present that is literally wonderful--wonder being the by-product of precisely the kind of unencumbered first sight, or virginal noticing to which the adult brain has closed itself." Meditation and prayer can also offer access to this wonder-filled state. Have you ever had an experience of expanded consciousness, of wonder? How would you describe it?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, August 6, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, August 15, 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 American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic by Victoria Johnson, then you might also like these books recommended by our discussion group members:

• Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species by Sean B. Carroll.
• Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
• The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Collector: David Douglas and the Natural History of the Northwest by Jack Nisbet
• Hamilton : The Revolution : Being the Complete Libretto of the Broadway Musical, with a True Account of Its Creation, and Concise Remarks on Hip-Hop, the Power of Stories, and the New America  by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter.
• Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation by Andrea Wulf
• The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World by Andrea Wulf

July Not Fiction Book Discussions

In The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson, we read about the obsessive and even selfish aspects of a deep interest in natural history, and in American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic by Victoria Johnson, we read about the more generous and civic-minded.

Dr. David Hosack was a contemporary of America's founding generation, and he is perhaps most famous for his role as the attending physician at the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. More importantly, he was also a contemporary of the great explorers and naturalists of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Joseph A. Banks, John and William Bartram, and Alexander von Humboldt. Hosack extended his commitment to medicine and building civic organizations to a deep passion in botany and establishing a botanical garden that would be an educational and research center for the new nation. His Elgin Botanical Garden, created at great personal cost, became the model for the New York Botanical Garden and the more than four hundred botanical gardens and arboreta in the United States today. But as Johnson notes,

. . . Hosack's greatest legacy is perhaps the one that is the hardest to see. He showed his fellow citizens how to build institutions. Over and over, in the face of criticism and misfortune, he rallied people around him to create the charitable, medical, and cultural institutions that make cities worth inhabiting and that educate a nation for generations to come. Philanthropic work is hard and complex. The daily lives of civic organizations--full of meetings, bylaws, elections, and the like--strike many people as dull and unheroic. Because this work and its results are collective, we can't easily single out one hero to celebrate. Yet they take just as much patience, ingenuity, and money as any discovery or invention. Perhaps today more than ever, Hosack's quieter sort of heroism deserves emulation. He dreamed from boyhood about what his generation could do to improve the lives of others.

What do you think? Johnson notes, "We like our heroes to stand alone, so we can easily discern and celebrate their achievements." What are the qualities and achievements we usually celebrate in American heroes? Were you familiar with David Hosack before reading American Eden? If so, was it for his role in the Hamilton/Burr duel, or for his more significant contributions? How would you describe Hosack? We also tend to like our heroes to be uncomplicated, entirely good, but as with many of the founding generation of America, Hosack not only did not take a stand against slavery, his household included enslaved people. How can we make sense of the contradictory aspects of Hosack's character and behavior? As Johnson points out, civic organizations make a city, state, or country worth inhabiting. What kinds of organizations do you feel improve the life of your city, state, or country? Hosack had difficulty securing government support for Elgin Botanical Garden. Should government or individual citizens support these organizations? Looking ahead to the subject of our next two books, what role should government play in research, provision, and regulation of health care and pharmaceuticals?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, July 2, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, July 18, 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 Denmark Vesey's Garden: Slavery and Memory in the Cradle of the Confederacy by Ethan J. Kytle and Blain Roberts, then you might also enjoy these books recommended by our discussion group members:

• Our Man in Charleston: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South by Christopher Dickey
• Charleston's Avery Center: From Education and Civil Rights to Preserving the African American Experience by Edmund L. Drago with Marvin Dulaney
• Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston
• America's Longest Siege: Charleston, Slavery, and the Slow March towards Civil War by Joseph Kelly
• The Origin of Others by Toni Morrison, with a forward by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Black Charlestonians: A Social History 1822-1885 by Bernard E. Powers

June Not Fiction Book Discussions

Denmark Vesey's Garden: Slavery and Memory in the Cradle of the Confederacy by Ethan J. Kytle and Blain Roberts asks us to consider how communal memory is constructed and how that memory affects our relationships within our communities. Kytle and Roberts, historians at California State University, Fresno, explore in depth how Charleston, South Carolina, remembers--or rather, misremembers, or even forgets--its central role in slavery, and how this communal act of misremembering and forgetting affects race relations in the United States today.

Kytle and Blain document in nuanced detail the systematic and institutionalized whitewashing and outright suppression of the truth about slavery in historical tourism beginning as soon as the 1860s, bolstered by Jim Crow violence into the 1960s, and continuing even today by examining how national holidays are celebrated, how historical figures are monumentalized, and how black culture is interpreted and often appropriated. Kytle and Blain help us see that the romantic, moonlight-and-magnolia version of the South and of Charleston in particular that draws thousands of tourists each year rests on fundamental misconceptions. As Kytle and Blain were completing work on Denmark Vesey's Garden in 2015, Dylann Roof visited Charleston, stoking his racial hatred at cultural and historical sites, and ultimately shooting nine people at Emanuel A.M.E. church, the congregation of Denmark Vesey, the black revolutionary who plotted a failed slave insurrection in 1822. Kytle and Blain connect the national communal narrative about slavery to America's current racial divide:

It is hardly a coincidence that whitewashed memories of slavery, the Confederacy, and the Civil War find more fertile ground on the political right than on the left. These ideas, after all, have long reinforced reactionary positions. A century ago, the Lost Cause provided the intellectual and emotional foundation for segregationist laws and customs. Today, the enduring misunderstanding born from Lost Cause mythology make it easier to oppose policies and programs that would redress the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow--from affirmative action and more progressive taxation to criminal justice reform and reparations.

What do you think? If you grew up in Charleston, how does Denmark Vesey's Garden compare with your understanding of the history and culture of your hometown? If you were a tourist in Charleston before moving here, what narrative, explicit or implicit, were you offered by the tours and programs in which you participated? How does Denmark Vesey's Garden challenge this narrative? In your opinion, is Charleston and the United States making progress in having an honest conversation about slavery and its historical legacy? Does it adequately acknowledge black experience and culture? In addition to appropriately interpreting our communal history, what can we do to facilitate this crucial conversation?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, June 4, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, June 20, 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 The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson, then you might also like these books suggested by our discussion group members:

• Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake by Frank W. Abagnale
• The White Road: Journey into an Obsession by Edmund de Waal
• The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century by Edward Dolnick
• Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies by Ross King
• The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
• H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
• The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession by Mark Obmascik
• The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean
• The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese by Michael Paterniti
• The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed by John Vaillant

May Not Fiction Book Discussions

What is the line between interest and obsession? The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson considers this question through several intertwined stories.

The central story is that of Edwin Rist, an accomplished young American flautist whose deep interest in the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying led him to break into the British Museum of Natural History at Tring and steal hundreds of rare, historically and scientifically significant bird specimens to support his own fly-tying and to sell so that he could buy a golden flute. Supporting Rist's story is that of what Johnson calls "the feather underground," the clannish fly-tying community that shares and encouraged his interest in the feathers of endangered and protected species of birds used for creating their exquisite flies. Parallel in interest but different in intent is the story of naturalists such as Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace who braved dangerous journeys to collect these specimens for scientific purposes. As Johnson comes to see it, it is a "war between knowledge and greed." But perhaps most interesting of all is Johnson's own story. He took up fly fishing to relieve PTSD symptoms resulting from his work coordinating the reconstruction of the Iraqi city of Fallujah for USAID and subsequent work through his own nonprofit, the List Project, to bring Iraqi refugees to safety in the United States. He was waist-high in the Red River in New Mexico when his guide told him Rist's story. Johnson admits, "I don't know if it was Edwin's Victorian-sounding name, the sheer weirdness of the story, or the fact that I was in desperate need of a new direction in life, but I became obsessed with the crime within moments." He would spend much of the next five years investigating Rist's crime, for which Rist avoided any serious repercussions.

What do you think? Have you ever had an interest that verged on obsession? What do you think was behind the obsessive nature of your interest? Why do you think fly-tiers are so interested in rare bird feathers? Is it essentially similar to or different from the interest naturalists like Darwin and Wallace and present-day scientists take in rare species of birds? How does the Internet support and even fuel "the feather underground"? What kind of person does Edwin Rist seem to be? What do you think motivated his crime? Asperger's syndrome? Greed? Something else? What about his accomplice, Long Nguyen? Why did he assist Rist? And what about Johnson himself? Why do you think Johnson was so interested in this story? And why did he decide to include his own story in what is essentially a true-crime narrative?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, May 7, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, May 16, 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 Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island by Earl Swift, then you might also like these books suggested by our discussion group members:

The Beans of Egypt, Maine by Carolyn Chute
The Water is Wide: A Memoir by Pat Conroy
The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea by Sebastian Junger
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local--and Helped Save an American Town by Beth Macy
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The Tillerman Cycle by Cynthia Voigt

You might also enjoy watching this video created by Jeff Leeds Cohn from The Atlantic series The Atlantic Selects posted June 1, 2018 at https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/561587/tangier-island/. In it, viewers meet several of the residents of Tangier profiled in Swift's book and see beautiful footage of the island's landscape. The film has an elegiac tone in keeping with Swift's title Chesapeake Requiem.

April Not Fiction Book Discussions

For April's discussions, we move from the heartland to a tiny island on the East Coast facing many of the same challenges as America's farming communities.

In Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island, journalist Earl Swift navigates centuries of history, the effects of climate change, and the rhythms of the crabbing and oystering life on Tangier Island in Chesapeake Bay, Virginia. First settled in the 1700s, Tangier Island has lost two-thirds of its land to the sea since the mid-1800s. Residents and scientists debate the cause, and a feasible solution remains elusive. Meanwhile, as crab and oyster stocks decline, consequent regulations of these fisheries increase, such that making a living as Tangier watermen will prove difficult for young people who might want to stay on the island. Its population has fallen to under 500. Tangier Island will likely be a victim of either or both climate change and the dissolution of its community.

What do you think? Swift titles his book a "requiem," an act of remembrance for someone or something that has passed. What do you think will happen to Tangier Island? As Swift asks, what do you think should happen? Should it be saved, both the physical island and its traditional, conservative community? What criteria should we use to make this decision? The significance of its natural resources? The size of its population? Its value within the narrative of American history and culture? As Swift notes, it will require a national consensus as the effects of climate change accelerate to affect more American places: "We will not have the money, the physical means, or the time to save them all. So we as a people will have to develop a rubric for deciding which towns and properties we save and which we surrender to the sea."

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

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

If you enjoyed Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh, then you might also like these book recommended by The Booklist Reader:

• Born Bright: A Young Girl's Journey from Nothing to Something in America by C. Nicole Mason
• Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
• Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
• The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls
• Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
• Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land
• Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in Boom-Time America by Barbara Ehrenreich
• There Will Be No Miracles Here: A Memoir by Casey Gerald
• White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg

March Not Fiction Book Discussions

This month we continue to read about strong women living in the middle of America, formerly a frontier, today considered "flyover" country, with Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh.

Born the daughter of generations of Kansas wheat farmers on her father's side and generations of teen mothers on her mother's side, Smarsh's life was shaped by social and economic trends away from small family farms that left her hard-working family trapped in a cycle of poverty and the chaos it creates in people's lives. Combining memoir with social and cultural analysis, Smarsh examines America's unspoken socioeconomic class divide through her family's experience. Smarsh realized at a young age that avoiding teen pregnancy and doing well in school would be her pathway to a more stable and fulfilling life. She is today a successful academic and journalist. Acknowledging that white privilege and a good public education were advantages, she says,

The American narrative of a poor kid working hard, doing the right thing, and finding success for it is so deep in me, my life story so tempting as potential evidence for that narrative's validity, that I probably sometimes err on the side of conveying a story in which I'm an individual beating the odds with her own determination. There's some truth in that story. But my life is a litany of blessings somehow sewn into my existence rather than accomplishments to my own credit.

What do you think? At the beginning of her memoir, Smarsh writes that, as a child, "I heard a voice unlike the ones in my house or on the the news that told me my place in the world." How did this voice differ from the voices of her family and culture? Who or what did this voice, that of a child, represent to Smarsh? She addresses this voice throughout the memoir. Did you find this to be a successful narrative technique? Why or why not? How was Smarsh's family affected by the shift from rural to suburban life? By Reaganomics, welfare reform, the housing bubble and mortgage crisis, the criminalization and monetization of poverty, and other political and economic trends in the 1980s, 90s, and early 2000s? In addition to these challenges, many of the women in Smarsh's family were the victims of domestic abuse at the hands of fathers, boyfriends, and husbands. Smarsh writes, "When I was well into adulthood, the United States developed the notion that a dividing line of class and geography separated two essentially different kinds of people." What are some of the stereotypes our culture holds about poor people, especially poor, white people? How do Smarsh and her family both confirm and challenge these stereotypes? Has Heartland changed the way you think about poverty in America? Why or why not? Good public education made a real difference in Smarsh's life, She argues that "this country has failed its children." Do you agree? If so, what could we do differently to ensure a more equitable outcome for all American and immigrant children? Critics have compared Heartland to Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance. If you have read both books, what similarities and differences do you see between the two books and the authors' attitude toward poverty and their own personal success?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, March 5, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, March 21, 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 Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser, then you might also like these books suggested by our discussion group members:

• The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
• Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S.C. Gwynne
• Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
• Caroline: Little House, Revisited by Sarah Miller
• The Birchbark House series by Louise Erdrich

February Not Fiction Book Discussions

For our February discussions, we move from the story of America's biggest house to one of some iconic little houses--Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser. The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder are among the best-loved and most influential in American children's literature. But as Fraser notes, they are "a profound act of American myth-making and self-transformation," very different in significant ways from the life Wilder actually lived.

Fraser told her publisher,

One of the reasons why I wanted to write this book is that I came to feel that 'Laura' had almost been loved to death, sort of like a beloved doll or toy. Between the fictional 'Laura' of the books and the even more heavily fictionalized girl of the TV show, we've tended to lose sight of the fact that Laura Ingalls Wilder was a real person who was complicated and intense. She's also someone whose life opens a window on everything from frontier history and the Plains Indian wars to the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Her real life is even more remarkable than the story in her books, in some ways, which ended at age 18 with her marriage.

What do you think? Did you read the Little House books or watch the TV show as a child? What were your feelings about them then, and have they changed with time? Fraser includes a sweeping narrative of the climate, economics, politics, and culture of the late 19th and early 20th century in her biography of Wilder. How does Fraser's factual account of Wilder's real childhood and later life differ from the stories Wilder wrote, both in content and in theme? How does Fraser's more factual account affect your perception of Wilder's work? Fraser writes, "Wilder made history." How did Wilder and other women of her era make history? How did her life and the way she presented it differ from that of famous male frontier icons such as Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett? Do you find it ironic that the Little House books portray a close-knit, loving family, yet her own relationships were often fraught with tension? In particular, how would you characterize the relationships Wilder had with the women in her life, including her own mother Caroline, sister Mary, and daughter Rose?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, February 5, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, February 21, 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 The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home by Denise Kiernan, then you might also like these books mentioned by Kiernan as well as a few books and movies suggested by our discussion group members:

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Portrait of a Lady and The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
(Of course all four of these novels have been made into films . . . )
The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T. J. Stiles
One Summer: America 1927 by Bill Bryson
Television series The Men Who Built America
Television series Downton Abbey
Documentary The Queen of Versailles

January Not Fiction Book Discussions

We begin the year's discussions with The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home by Denise Kiernan, a history of the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC, that is also a sweeping narrative of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. George Washington Vanderbilt, grandson of "the first tycoon," Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt, used his inherited fortune to travel, collect art, and ultimately build a lavish home in rural North Carolina, employing the most celebrated architects and landscape designers of his time, to showcase his collection. As a result of world events, personal financial decisions, and changes in tax law, in just three generations, George's portion of the Commodore's fortune had been reduced enough to make Biltmore more of a liability than an asset to his heirs. His wife, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser Vanderbilt, emerges as the real heroine of the story of Biltmore, for it is her social responsibility and careful management that made Biltmore a lasting contribution to the Asheville community, to forestry and conservation, and to her family.

What do you think? Kiernan writes that “[w]alking the halls of Biltmore House for a day is a journey back in time” (p. 297). Have you ever visited Biltmore? If not, visit Biltmore’s official website at Biltmore.com and take a virtual tour of the estate through the site’s photo gallery. She also writes that Biltmore “may not have been in New York or Newport, but if this house didn’t make an impression on the Four Hundred, nothing would, acorns or no.” (p. 66). Is there anything about the house and the grounds that you find particularly striking? If so, what? Have your thoughts and feelings about the house changed as a result of reading The Last Castle? If so, how? Discuss the intentions and feelings George, Edith, and Cornelia each had for Biltmore, as well as the estate's effect on the region socially and economically. During the Gilded Age, being “a son of the Vanderbilt dynasty was to have your every move, dalliance, chance encounter, and passing venture watched and analyzed” (p. 7-8). Why do you think the public is so interested in the lives of the Vanderbilt family? Discuss the impact the constant public scrutiny has on the behavior of members of the Vanderbilt family. Can you think of any modern equivalents that are scrutinized in the same way the Vanderbilt family was in their time? Kiernan mentions many popular and enduring works of fiction from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Have you read any of these novels? Kiernan also integrates world history, including two World Wars and the financial crisis of 1929, into the story of Biltmore. How do these references help you understand the story of the Vanderbilts and Biltmore House? In 1873, Mark Twain and coauthor Charles Dudley Warner wrote a book about the age of excess in which they lived titled The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. Do you think “Gilded Age” is an appropriate title for the time? If so, why? Do you see any comparisons to today’s economy and culture?

We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, January 8, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, January 17, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog. And if you haven't already, take a look at the list of titles and dates for this year''s discussions. What connections will you discover?