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 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 (library closes at 1:00 on April 7): 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
Previous Selections
2022:
- January 7: Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History’s First Global Manhunt / Steven Johnson
- February 4: The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek / Howard Market
- March 4: The Swerve: How the World Became Modern / Stephen Greenblatt
- April 1: Last Stands: Why Men Fight When All Is Lost / Michael Walsh
- May 6: The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization / Roland Ennos
- June 3: One Summer: America, 1927 / Bill Bryson
- July 1: Lincoln and Whitman: Parallel Lives in Civil War Washington / Daniel Mark Epstein
- August 5: Nelson’s Trafalgar: The Battle that Changed the World / Roy Adkins
- September 2: The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire / Jack Weatherford
- October 7: Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a Christian City in the Islamic World / Giles Milton
- November 4: The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty / Caroline Alexander
- December 2: Voyagers: The Settlement of the Pacific / Nicholas Thomas
2021: The History Book Group did not meet in 2021
2020:
- January 17: The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824 / Harvey Sacks
- February 21: Eight Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Biland’s History-Making Race Around the World / Matthew Goodman
- March 20: Cancelled
- April 17: Cancelled
- May 15: Cancelled
- June 19: Cancelled
- July 17: The Geography of Genius / Eric Weiner
- August 21: The Wright Brothers / David McCullough
- September 18: The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History / Elizabeth Kolbert
- October 16: Lake of the Ozarks / Bill Geist
- November 20: Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder & Memory in Northern Ireland / Patrick Radden Keefe
- December 18: Barnum: An American Life / Robert Wilson
2019:
- January 18: Black Tudors: The Untold Story / Miranda Kaufmann
- February 15: Pandemic 1918: Eyewitness Accounts from the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History / Catherine Arnold
- March 15: Ruthless Tide: The Heroes and Villains of the Johnstown Flood, America’s Astonishing Gilded Age Disaster / Al Roker
- April 12: Once a Professor: A Memoir of Teaching in Turbulent Times / Jerry Apps
- May 17: The Last Palace: Europe’s Turbulent Century in Five Lives and One Legendary House / Norman Eisen
- June 21: Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India / Gidla Sujatha
- July 19: Dog Man: An Uncommon Life on a Faraway Mountain / Martha Sherrill
- August 16: Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America / Craig Childs
- September 20: Queen Victoria’s Matchmaking: The Royal Marriages that Shaped Europe / Deborah Cadbury
- October 18: In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex / Nathaniel Philbrick
- November 15: Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad & Criminal in 19th-Century New York / Stacy Horn
- December 20: 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