A book group for non-fiction...

[neotoma]

I was talking to ellen_fremedon at Small Press Expo (more on that later) and in the course of our meandering discussion, I came to the realization that I really want to talk about non-fiction books with other fans in an organized setting. I want to found a book group!

Mostly, I'm thinking about history, anthropology, and science books for the interested layperson and maybe the more accessible academic texts. Given that it takes a while to read these kind of non-fiction books, I think that such a group would only meet every other month.

ellen_fremedon and I brainstormed a list of books that we think might be interesting to read and discuss:

• The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World by David W. Anthony


• The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman


• 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C Mann


• Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer


• Servants of the Dynasty: Palace Women in World History edited by Anne Walthall


• Viking Age Iceland by Jesse Byock
  

Personally, I'd like to get read more by female researchers and more on non-Western cultures.

I'd be willing to organize such a group, and host it part of the time -- so who in the Washington Metro area think this sounds interesting? Or you can just give me suggestions for books to read.

ETA: Jesse Byock's Viking Age Iceland, which is fascinating

Comments

[fyrdrakken]

Four titles that sound interesting, and one book (Albion's Seed) that's been sitting on my shelf for a few years now waiting to be read. Yeah, that sounds interesting -- pity I'm not in the area.

[settiai]

Ooh, I'd totally be interested.

(Sorry I didn't get to meet up with you on Saturday! I just completely failed at meeting up with anyone at SPX.)

[sanj]

Oh, dude, I want to get in in this even from a distance. Seriously, Skype my butt in. I love non-fiction.

Off the top of my head, I propose Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, and note that 1493 is now out.

Most of the other good nonfiction I've read lately is either older stuff (from gleaning my local library) or a little too counseling-specific. Although possibly I could raise some interest in Born For Love, a really good overview of empathy and its role in human development.

[zana16]

I'd be up for this! I just finished Guns Germs & Steel and wanted someone to talk about it with! Collapse, by the same author, has gone on my "to read sometime in the next year" list.

1491 is on my "to read in the quite near future" list; it sounds fascinating.

The Future-Eaters is another thought-provoking nonfiction book I've been wanting to read for awhile, as is Genghis Kahn and the Making of the Modern World.

[ambyr]

You do not know me, but I'd also be up for this.

Recs

[dorothy1901]

You've got one of my all-time favorite non-fiction writers: Barbara Tuchman. You might be interested in the works of two others: Elaine Pagels and the late Stephen Jay Gould. Pagels wrote several books about the Gnostic Gospels. Stephen Jay Gould wrote mostly about natural history. Both writers combine a first-rate scholar's understanding of the subject with a gift for writing readable prose.

ETA: I also (tentatively) recommend Why We Eat What We Eat: How Columbus Changed the Way the World Eats by Raymond Sokolov. I haven't read the book, but I've read many of Sokolov's columns for Natural History Magazine, and they were excellent.