Do you get as engrossed in historical nonfiction as others do in Harry Potter or Twilight? Do you also have a taste for well-written prose? Then this is the book club for you.
Each month, we will pair one work of nonfiction with one work of fiction. The fiction work will discuss the same time period/event/place/person/etc. as the nonfiction work.
This idea came to me when I was reading The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. I was fascinated by the historical background of the novel -- namely the Dust Bowl of the 1930s -- and I wanted to learn more. So I read The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan, a National Book Award winner that offers a social and political history of that period.
Our pairings would be of a similar ilk.
Please shoot me an email if you are fellow history and novel buff who would like to join!
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The Big Dead Dry Portia Stanton-Noble Would you drive into a small Australian town in drought, packed with intrigue, lust and murder? Brumby Flat, a small country town in South Australia, suddenly rises to notoriety and becomes the centre of the world through a baffling series of murders and accidental deaths. Raquel Willaston and her son, Steve, have just... |
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After Effects Andrea Gilats To grieve after a profound loss is perfectly natural and healthy. To be debilitated by grief for more than a decade, as Andrea Gilats was, is something else. In her candid, deeply moving, and ultimately helpful memoir of breaking free of death’s relentless grip on her life, Gilats tells her story of living with prolonged, or "complicated," grief... |
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The Meat and Potatoes of Life Lisa Smith Molinari Applying her wit and humor to marriage and family life, award-winning columnist Lisa Smith Molinari shares her real-life family's humorous coming of age story, from marriage through raising kids to empty nest. Written in episodes, contained in seasons, her memoir is a sitcom for book lovers! |
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In the Company of Killers Bryan Christy In this intricate and propulsive thriller—from National Geographic's founder of Special Investigations—Tom Klay an investigative reporter leading a double life as a CIA spy, discovers that he has been weaponized in a global game of espionage pitting him against one of the world's most ruthless... |
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If Only I Were God Frank M. Fanella If God exists, why does He allow so much pain and suffering? It is a question at the center of many arguments against the existence of God and a conundrum that stumps even the most devout worshipers. What do we make of pain and suffering? What does it cost us? What is its value? How can an all-loving God allow for world catastrophe... |
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The Future of Feeling Kaitlin Ugolik Phillips An insightful exploration of what social media, AI, robot technology, and the digital world are doing to our relationships with each other and with ourselves. There's no doubt that technology has made it easier to communicate. It's also easier to shut someone out when we are confronted with online discourse. Why bother... |
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The Palm Reader Antoinette Zam When someone from a friend group dies, the secrets do not die with her. Four women — Casey, Elle, Kathy, and Lauren — were barely adults when they met and became friends at Northwestern University. Their friendship grew over the four years they spent at college, and when their time together came to an end, they held on tight to their... |
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Vapour Trails Abdul Qadir Two friends living a legally questionable life decide one day to leave it all behind and turn over a new leaf. They soon realize that actions have consequences, and getting out is much harder than getting in. A transgressive tour of Pakistan, Vapor Trails describes a world that is painted in strange... |
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The Great Derangement Amitav Ghosh Are we deranged? The acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh argues that future generations may well think so. How else to explain our imaginative failure in the face of global warming? Ghosh examines our inability—in literature, history, politics—to grasp the scale and violence of... |
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Someday Everything Will All Make Sense Carol LaHines Someday Everything Will All Make Sense follows Luther van der Loon, an eccentric harpsichordist and professor of early music, as he navigates the stages of grief after the untimely death of his mother. Luther obsesses over burial practices, rails against the funerary industry, and institutes a suit against the Chinese takeout whose "sloppy... |
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Feelin' It: A College Journey of Epic Proportions Eric V. Warren Every year, thousands of Black students head off to predominantly White colleges and universities. Have you ever wondered what it is like to be one of those students? Feelin' It is a deep dive into the thoughts, feelings and experiences of a Black student finding his way through a small university in Michigan's untamed Upper Peninsula. |
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Observer Lanza Robert & Nancy Kress If we can alter the structure of reality, should we? Caro Soames-Watkins, a talented neurosurgeon whose career has been upended by controversy, is jobless, broke, and the sole supporter of her sister, a single mother with a severely disabled child. When she receives a strange job offer from Nobel Prize-winning... |
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Probably lives in Tahiti R.A. Cramblitt What happens when two cynics fall in love, disrupting what they thought were settled, semi-happy lives? Probably Lives in Tahiti is the often humorous, sometimes profound story of lovers navigating the hopes, dreams and doubts that can make or break a fledgling romance. |
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Tiger Woods's Back & Tommy John's Elbow Jonathan Gelber M.D. How has today's society changed because of Sandy Koufax, Tom Brady, or Tiger Woods? How have courtrooms and the law changed because of the tragic loss of a No. 1 NBA Draft Pick and a NASCAR driver? And what effect did Magic Johnson's HIV diagnosis have on the... |
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My Big Fake Wedding Jessica Hatch The date is set. The guy is definitely not. When I entered a lottery to win a free wedding, I had no idea that I was about to be cheated on, and unceremoniously dumped, by my ex-boyfriend. So when I win, there’s just one teeny tiny problem… I have no one to walk down the aisle with. All I need to do now is find a husband. Simple, right? |
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Closure Has Come, Goldman Sachs Bobby Sachs You heard about my book, you saw me on the front cover just a few seconds ago, you’re debating in your mind right now whether you should read it or not. You are on the internet or standing at Barnes and Noble ready to make your decision. This is my first autobiography... |
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