The League of Women Voters of Concord-Carlisle hosts a book discussion several times a year, usually on Wednesday morning in the Concord Free Public Library on Main Street. For information, contact BookGroup [at] lwvcc.org.
LWVCC Book Selections 2019-20:
The LWVCC Book Committee will recommend five books for discussion in the coming year.
SEPTEMBER, Main Library: Wed., 9/18, 7 - 8:30 pm, Lower Level Meeting Room, Thurs., 9/19, 9:30 – 11:00 am, Trustees Meeting Room
Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson (now over 160 weeks on the NYTimes Best Seller list)
Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. This is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.
NOVEMBER, Main Library: Wed. 11/13, 9/18, 9:30 - 11 am, Thurs. 11/14, 9/19, 7 – 8:30 pm
What the Eyes Don’t See, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, alongside a team of researchers, parents, friends, and community leaders, discovered that the children of Flint, Michigan, were being exposed to lead in their tap water--and then battled her own government and a brutal backlash to expose that truth to the world. Paced like a scientific thriller, What the Eyes Don't See reveals how misguided austerity policies, broken democracy, and callous bureaucratic indifference placed an entire city at risk. And at the center of the story is Dr. Mona herself--an immigrant, doctor, scientist, and mother whose family's activist roots inspired her pursuit of justice. (Goodreads Review).
JANUARY dates to be determined
The Women’s Hour, Elaine Weiss
Following a handful of remarkable women who led their respective forces into battle, along with appearances by Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Frederick Douglass, and Eleanor Roosevelt, The Woman's Hour is an inspiring story of activists winning their own freedom in one of the last campaigns forged in the shadow of the Civil War, and the beginning of the great twentieth-century battles for civil rights. (Goodreads Review).
MARCH dates to be determined
Walden Warming, Climate Change Comes to Thoreau’s Woods, Richard Primack
MAY -- to be determined
BOOKS WE'VE READ
A TEAM OF RIVALS by Doris Kearns Goodwin
ABUNDANCE: The Future is Better Thank You Think by Peter Diamandis & Steven Kotler
AMERICAN BLOOMSBURY by Susan Cheever
ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE by Barbara Kingsolver
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: An American Life by Walter Isaacson
BLACK WALDEN: Slavery and Its Aftermath in Concord, Massachusetts by Elise Lemire
THE BOY WHO HARNASSED THE WIND: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer
COLLAPSE: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE by Jeff Clements
DARK MONEY: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer
DESCENT INTO CHAOS: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid
DESERT QUEEN: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell by Janet Wallach
FAST FOOD NATION: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser
FOUNDING MEMORIES by Cokie Roberts
GUN AND THE OLIVE BRANCH: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East by David Hirst
GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
HIDDEN FIGURES: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
HOT, FLAT AND CROWDED by Thomas Friedman
INFIDEL by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
ISTANBUL: Memories and the City by Orphan Pamuk
THE LEMON TREE by Sandy Tolan
THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF RACHEL CARSON by William Sounder
LBJ: The Passage of Power by Robert Caro
LIPSTICK JIHAD by Azadeh Moaveni
THE MAKING OF THE PRESIDENT 1960 by Theodore H. White
MIDDLE PASSAGES: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005 by James T. Campbell
THE NINE by Jeffrey Toobin
NINE PARTS OF DESIRE by Geraldine Brooks
THE OATH: The Obama White House and The Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin
THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA by Michael Pollen
OUT OF EDEN: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion by Alan Burdick
OVERTHROW by Stephen Kinzer
PARIS 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan
THE PLACES IN BETWEEN by Rory Stewart
REIGN OF ERROR: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools by Diane Ravitch
THE RIGHT TO VOTE: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States by Alexander Keyssar
SISTERS IN LAW: How Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World by Linda Hirschman
SISTERS: The Lives of America's Suffragists by Jean H. Baker
SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME: The Re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon
STONES INTO SCHOOLS by Greg Mortenson
TERROR IN THE NAME OF GOD: Why Religious Militants Kill by Jessica Stern
THE THIRD CHIMPANZEE: THE Evolution and Future of the Human Animal by Jared Diamond
THREE CUPS OF TEA by Greg Mortenson
UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN by Jon Kraukauer
WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS? by Thomas Frank
WHY NATIONS FAIL: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson
THE WORLD IS FLAT by Thomas Friedman
Author's Talks
PEABODY SISTERS, THE by Megan Marshall
SKATING ON THE EDGE: A Memoir and Journey Through a Metamorphosis of the CIA by Carlos Luria
TWENTY-SEVEN DOLLARS AND A DREAM: How Muhammad Yunus Changed the World and What It Cost Him by Katharine Esty