The History Book Group usually meets on the first Friday of the month at 1:00. No registration is required, all are welcome. A limited supply of books is available for checkout at the circulation desk.
Selections for 2024
- January 5 – Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania / Erik Larson
- February 2 – The Pirate’s Wife: The Remarkable True Story of Sarah Kidd / Daphne Palmer
- March 1 – Galileo’s Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love / Dava Sobel
- April 5 – When Britain Burned the White House: The 1814 Invasion of Washington / Peter Snow
- May 3 – Lexington: The Extraordinary Life and Turbulent Times of America’s Legendary Racehorse / Kim Wicker
- June 7 – Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington 1848-1868 / Cokie Roberts
- July 5 – Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 / Simon Winchester
- August 2 – Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West / Dorothy Wickenden
- September 6 – Empress of the Nile: The Daredevil Archaeologist Who Saved Egypt’s Ancient Temples From Destruction / Lynne Olson
- October 4 – The Witches: Salem, 1692 / Stacy Schiff
- November 1 – Our Man in Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor / Steve Kemper
- December 6 – The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire / Joseph Sassoon
Previous Selections
2023
- January 6 – The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison’s Ten-Year Road Trip / Jeff Guinn
- February 3 – Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill/ Candice Millard
- March 3 – Syria’s Secret Library: Reading and Redemption in a Town Under Siege / Mike Thomson
- April 14 – Dodge City – Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West / Tom Clavin
- May 5 – River of the Gods: Genius, Courage and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile / Candice Millard
- June 2 – The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World / Shelley Puhak
- July 7 – Lafayette in the Somewhat United States / Sarah Vowell
- August 4 – Fen, Bog & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis / Annie Proulx
- September 1 – The Correspondents: Six Women Writers on the Front Lines of WWII / Judith Mackrell
- October 6 – Stampede: Gold Fever & Disaster in the Klondike / Brian Castner
- November 3 – After the Romanovs: Russian Exiles in Paris from the Belle Epoque Through Revolution and War / Helen Rappaport
- December 1 – Heiresses: The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies / Laura Thompson
2022
- January – Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History’s First Global Manhunt / Steven Johnson
- February – The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek / Howard Market
- March – The Swerve: How the World Became Modern / Stephen Greenblatt
- April – Last Stands: Why Men Fight When All Is Lost / Michael Walsh
- May – The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization / Roland Ennos
- June – One Summer: America, 1927 / Bill Bryson
- July – Lincoln and Whitman: Parallel Lives in Civil War Washington / Daniel Mark Epstein
- August – Nelson’s Trafalgar: The Battle that Changed the World / Roy Adkins
- September – The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire / Jack Weatherford
- October – Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a Christian City in the Islamic World / Giles Milton
- November – The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty / Caroline Alexander
- December – Voyagers: The Settlement of the Pacific / Nicholas Thomas
2021
The History Book Group did not meet in 2021
2020
- January – The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824 / Harvey Sacks
- February – Eight Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Biland’s History-Making Race Around the World / Matthew Goodman
- March – Cancelled
- April – Cancelled
- May – Cancelled
- June – Cancelled
- July – The Geography of Genius / Eric Weiner
- August – The Wright Brothers / David McCullough
- September – The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History / Elizabeth Kolbert
- October – Lake of the Ozarks / Bill Geist
- November – Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder & Memory in Northern Ireland / Patrick Radden Keefe
- December – Barnum: An American Life / Robert Wilson
2019
- January – Black Tudors: The Untold Story / Miranda Kaufmann
- February – Pandemic 1918: Eyewitness Accounts from the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History / Catherine Arnold
- March – Ruthless Tide – The Heroes and Villains of the Johnstown Flood, America’s Astonishing Gilded Age Disaster / Al Roker
- April – Once a Professor: A Memoir of Teaching in Turbulent Times / Jerry Apps
- May – The Last Palace: Europe’s Turbulent Century in Five Lives and One Legendary House / Norman Eisen
- June – Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India / Gidla Sujatha
- July – Dog Man – An Uncommon Life on a Faraway Mountain / Martha Sherrill
- August – Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America / Craig Childs
- September – Queen Victoria’s Matchmaking: The Royal Marriages that Shaped Europe / Deborah Cadbury
- October – In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex / Nathaniel Philbrick
- November – Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad & Criminal in 19th-Century New York / Stacy Horn
- December – A Time of Gifts: On Foot to Constantinople: From the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube / Patrick Leigh Fermor
2018
- January – The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill / Greg Mitchell
- February – Washington’s Farewell: The Founding Father’s Warning to Future Generations / John Avlon
- March – Hitler’s First Victims: The Quest for Justice / Timothy Ryback
- April – The Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City: Spectacle and Assassination at the 1901 World’s Fair / Margaret Creighton
- May – Magna Carta: The Birth of Liberty / Dan Jones
- June – The Ghost Ship of Brooklyn: An Untold Story of the American Revolution / Robert P. Watson
- July – The Sensational Past: How the Enlightenment Changed the Way We Use Our Senses / Carolyn Purnell
- August – Among the Living and the Dead: A Tale of Exile and Homecoming on the War Roads of Europe / Inara Verzemnieks
- September – Water Tossing Boulders: How a Family of Chinese Immigrants Led the First Fight to Desegregate Schools in the Jim Crow South / Adrienne Berard
- October – The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss and the American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home / Denise Kiernan
- November – Shooting Ghosts: A U.S. Marine, a Combat Photographer and Their Journey Back from War / Thomas Brenna & Finbarr O’Reilly
- December – A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression / Jane Ziegelman & Andrew Coe
2017
- April – The Fever of 1721: The Epidemic that Revolutionized Medicine and American Politics / Stephen Coss
- May – Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helen’s / Steve Olson
- June – Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 / Adam Hochschild
- July – The Medici: Power, Money and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance / Paul Strathern
- August – How We Got to Now: Six Innovations that Made the Modern World / Steven Johnson
- September – The Rift: A New Africa Breaks Free / Alex Perry
- October – Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948 / Madeleine Albright
- November – The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War / Don H. Doyle
- December – The Gates of Europe: The History of Ukraine / Serhili Plokhy