Nonfiction Book Group | Germantown Community Library

The Nonfiction Book Group meets on the third 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.

The library’s former History Book Group has been folded into the Nonfiction Group. For their past selections, please scroll to the bottom of the page.

Selections for 2021:

January 15: Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love / Dani Shapiro
February 19: Three Days in January: Dwight Eisenhower’s Final Mission / Bret Baier
March 19: My Life in France / Julia Child
April 16: In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette / Hampton Sides
May 21: They Called Us Enemy / George Takei
June 18: Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language / Gretchen McCulloch
July 16: Vesper Flights / Helen Macdonald
August 20: Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World / Timothy Brook
September 17: Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir / Natasha Tretheway
October 15: The Splendid and the Vile / Erik Larson
November 19: No Beast So Fierce: The Terrifying True Story of the Champawat Tiger, the Deadliest Animal in History / Edward Huckelbridge
December 17: The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey / Rinker Buck

PAST SELECTIONS

2020:

January 3: The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit / Michael Finkel
February 7: The Royal Art of Poison: Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine and Murder Most Foul /Eleanor Herman
March 6: The Genius of Birds / Jenifer Ackerman
April 3: Cancelled
May 1: Cancelled
June 5: Cancelled
July 3: The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain / Bill Bryson
August 7: Lab Girl / Hope Jahren
September 4: Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military / Neil deGrasse Tyson
October 2: In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History / Mitch Landrieu
November 6: Underland: A Deep Time Journey / Robert MacFarlane
December 4: Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know / Malcolm Gladwell

2019:

January 4: Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness / Peter Godfrey-Smith
February 1: An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic / Daniel Mendelsohn
March 1: Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor / Virgina Eubanks
April 5: Walking Home Ground: In the Footsteps of Muir, Leopold, and Derleth / Robert Root
May 3: How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence / Michael Pollan
June 7: American Nomads: Travels with Lost Conquistadors, Mountain Men, Cowboys, Indians, Hoboes, Truckers, and Bullriders / Richard Grant
July 5: Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures / Bill Schutt
August 2: The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State / Nadia Murad
September 6: The Death and Life of the Great Lakes / Dan Egan
October 4: How Do We Look: The Body, the Divine, and the Question of Civilization / Mary Beard
November 1: How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them / Jason Stanley
December 6: Survival of the Beautiful: Art, Science, and Evolution / David Rothenberg

2018:

January: Mercies in Disguise: A Story of Hope, a Family’s Genetic Destiny, and the Science that Rescued Them / Gina Kolata
February: The First Love Story: Adam, Eve, and Us / Bruce Feiler
March: Lost City of the Monkey God / Douglas Preston
April: The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between / Hisham Matar
May: A Flag Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of National Symbols / Time Marshall
June: Mozart’s Starling / Lyanda Lynn Haupt
July: The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer / Kate Summerscale
August: Champagne Baby: How One Parisian Learned to Love Wine – and Life – the American Way / Laure Dugas
September: Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy / Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant
October: Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student and a Life-Changing Friendship / Michelle Kuo
November: Your Atomic Self: The Invisible Elements That Connect You to Everything Else in the Universe / Curt Stager
December: Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman’s Awakening / Manal Al-Sharif

2017:

February: My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past / Jennifer Teege & Nikola Sellmair
March: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating / Elisabeth Tova Bailey
April: I Had to Survive: How a Plane Crash in the Andes Inspired My Calling to Save Lives / Dr. Roberto Canessa
May: The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from a Secret World / Peter Wohlleben
June: Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl / Stacey O’Brien
July: The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts / Joshua Hammer
August: The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World / Dalai Lama & Desmond Tutu
September: Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End / Atul Gawande
October: Boys in the Bunkhouse: Servitude and Salvation in the Heartland by Dan Barry
November: Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter / David Sax
December: Cold: Adventures in the World’s Frozen Places / Bill Streever

In January 2021, the History Book Group was folded into the Nonfiction Book Group. Listed below are their titles from 2017-2020.

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 / Benise 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