The Book Club is an informal discussion group of books chosen by the attendees. We meet once a month around the 4th Wednesday (actual date chosen by vote). Meetings are held in homes of volunteers who are also nice enough to provide light refreshments.
Next Meeting: February the 29th at Jennifer’s house in NW Austin
The Sociopath next door: the ruthless versus the rest of us – Martha Stout. A Harvard psychologist “she advises developing an awareness of the nature of anti-social behavior in order to avoid becoming its victim and proposes thirteen rules as self-help guidelines to assessing relationships and behavior for these characteristics, as well as offering advice on handling situations when one encounters the behavior. She provides the first modern psychological definition of conscience, and clarifies the sustaining nature of conscience in human life” (from Wikipedia).
http://www.bookpeople.com/book/9780767915823
Upcoming:
March
The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements – Sam Kean. “The Periodic Table is one of man’s crowning scientific achievements. But it’s also a treasure trove of stories of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession. The infectious tales and astounding details in THE DISAPPEARING SPOON follow carbon, neon, silicon, and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them” (from the back cover).
April
A Visit from the Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan. Inter-related short stories rather than a traditional novel. 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction.
May
Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women – Harriet Reisen. You may have seen the PBS American Masters feature on the life of a writer who became defined by a single book but who in reality also wrote pulp novels, served as a nurse in the Civil War, and had some very progressive ideas on society and the role of women.
June
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope – William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. A true story of a a boy growing up in a remote village in Malawi who constructed a windmill to generate electricity out of scavenged parts and diagrams in old science textbooks written in a language he couldn’t read.
I believe that the selections/titles used to be up on the site. But I don’t see them now. Am I missing something? I was at the September meeting to select books for upcoming months, but don’t have a record of our selections. Will they be posted here? Thanks
Jennifer, I believe Judy was working on getting that list together so she could post it to the site. I know she was out of town for a bit, but I’ll remind her! Thanks!