Non-fiction Book Club

October is National Reading Group Month, making this the perfect time to visit the Lititz Public Library and check out these recommendations for nonfiction book clubs.

Option B : Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding JoyOption B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant
Combining personal insight and new research, the authors share steps people can take to recover and rebound from life-shattering experiences.

The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple by Jeff Guinn
A young Indianapolis minister, who preached a curious blend of gospel and Marxism, moved his followers to a settlement in the jungles of Guyana, where in 1978, he ordered more than nine hundred people to swallow a cyanide-laced drink.

White Trash: The 400 –Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg
Existing since the earliest colonial settlements, the landless poor were pitted against newly freed slaves during Reconstruction, were at the heart of New Deal reforms and have always been at or near the center of major political debates.

Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones
Enterprising sugar cane farmers in a small county on the west coast of Mexico created a unique distribution system that brought the cheapest, most addictive form of heroin to the United States.

The Radium Girls : The Dark Story of America's Shining WomenThe Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore
During WWI, young women found lucrative work painting watches, clocks and military dials with a special luminous substance made from radium, but as the years passed, they began to suffer from mysterious and crippling illnesses.

Mrs. Sherlock Holmes: The True Story of New York City’s Greatest Female Detective and the 1917 Missing Girl Case that Captivated a Nation by Brad Ricca
A detective and lawyer turned her back on society life to fight crime and, after following a trail that led from New York to Italy, solved the cold case of a missing girl.

The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
The video of an accused murderer forces a young attorney to face the terrible reality of long-buried family secrets.

Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris
A magazine editor presents witty descriptions of some of the most common and vexing errors in language and usage, drawing on examples from classic literature and pop culture while sharing anecdotes from her work with celebrated writers.

Hidden Figures : The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space RaceHidden Figures: The America Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
Starting in WWII and moving through the Cold War, the civil rights movement and the space race, four African American women used their intellect to change their own lives and the country’s future.

The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston
In 1940, a journalist, who returned from the Honduran rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found a fabled and wealthy lost city, committed suicide without revealing its location.

Ruthless River: Love and Survival by Raft on the Amazon’s Relentless Madre de Dios by Holly FitzGerald
The author’s honeymoon was cut short when her plane crashed in the jungles of Peru, forcing the couple to attempt survival aboard a makeshift raft as they made their way down the Amazon River to civilization.

Master of the Mountain : Thomas Jefferson and His SlavesMaster of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves by Henry Wiencek
New information and hitherto disregarded evidence reveals Jefferson as a man of business who made a success of his debt-ridden plantation thanks to profits gained from his enslaved workers.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
J. Edgar Hoover and a former Texas Ranger unraveled the mysterious murders of two dozen members of the oil-rich Osage Indian nation, the wealthiest people per capita in the world during the 1920s.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
A blogger describes her experiences working at a crematory and exploring bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures.

September 29, 2017