Non-Fiction Book Club Retrospective
A List of Titles Discussed by the Non-Fiction Book Club
The Non-Fiction Book Club was founded in 2012. Here are the books we've discussed in the past. The links lead to the OCLN catalog.
2025
Jan. | Solito: A Memoir by Javier Zamora |
Feb. | The Trial of Lizzie Borden: A True Story by Cara Robertson |
Mar. | The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery |
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2024
2023
Jan. | The Girls of the Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II by Denise Kiernan |
Feb. | Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson |
Mar. | The Library Book by Susan Orlean |
Apr. | Trial by Fire: A Devastating Tragedy, a Hundred Lives Lost and a Fifteen-Year Search for the Truth by Scott James. |
May | The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication by Alexander Larman |
Jun. | Committed: Dispatches from a Psychiatrist in Training by Adam Stern |
Jul. | Walden by Henry David Thoreau |
Aug. | Don't Make Me Pull Over! An Informal History of the Family Road Trip by Richard Ratay |
Sep. | The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams by Stacy Schiff |
Oct. | The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women who Pursued Him, and the Murder that Shocked Jazz Age America by Karen Abbott |
Nov. | One Day: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America by Gene Weingarten |
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
Jan. | American Treasures : the Secret Efforts to Save the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address by Stephen Puleo |
Feb. | Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann |
Mar. | Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard |
Apr. | Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance |
May | Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts |
Jun. | Stranger in the Woods: the Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel |
Jul. | The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley by Malcolm X and ALex Haley |
Aug. | Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott |
Sep. | Townie: a memoir by Andre Dubus III |
Oct. | I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara |
Nov. |
Home Town by Tracy Kidder |
2017
2016
Jan. | Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, The FBI, and a Devil's Deal by Dick Lehr |
Feb. | The Race Underground : Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry that Built America's First Subway by Doug Most |
Mar. | Stealing Rembrandts : the Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists by Anthony Amore |
Apr. | The Greatest Treasure Hunt in History: the Story of the Monuments Men by Robert Edsel |
May | We are Market Basket : the Story of the Unlikely Grassroots Movement that Saved a Beloved Business by Daniel Korschun and Grant Welker |
Jun. | The Boys in the Boat : Nine Americans and their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown |
Jul. | The Other Wes Moore : the Story of One Name and Two Fates by Wes Moore |
Aug. | Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt |
Sep. | Thunderstruck by Erik Larson |
Oct. | Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow |
Nov. | The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot |
2015
Jan. | Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War by Nathaniel Philbrick |
Feb. | The Finest Hours : the True Story of a Heroic Sea Rescue by Michael Tougias & Casey Sherman |
Mar. | 1776 by David McCullough |
Apr. | Ponzi's Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend by Mitchell Zuckoff |
May | The King's Best Highway: The Lost History of the Boston Post Road, the Route That Made America by Eric Jaffe |
Sep. | The Great Hurricane, 1938 by Cherie Burns |
Oct. | The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea by Sebastian Junger |
Nov. | The Terrible Hours: The Greatest Submarine Rescue in History by Peter Maas |
2014
Jan. | The Fence: A Police Cover-Up Along Boston's Racial Divide by Dick Lehr |
Feb. | The Ride : the Jeffrey Curley Murder and its Aftermath by Brian MacQuarrie |
Mar. | A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr |
Apr. | Gracefully Insane : the Rise and Fall of America's Premier Mental Hospital by Alex Beam |
May | The Path : a One-Mile Walk Through the Universe by Chet Raymo |
Oct. | Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder |
Nov. | The Map Thief : the Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps by Michael Blanding |
2013
Jan. | The Crime of the Century: How the Brink's Robbers Stole Millions and the Hearts of Boston by Stephanie Schorow |
Feb. | Dark tide : the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 by Stephen Puleo |
Mar. | A City in Terror : Calvin Coolidge and the 1919 Boston Police Strike by Francis Russell |
Apr. | Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer |
May | Cod: a Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlanksy |
Oct. | Judge Sewall's Apology : the Salem Witch Trials and the Forming of the American Conscience by Richard Francis |
Nov. | Fire in the Grove: the Cocoanut Grove Tragedy and its Aftermath byJohn Esposito |
2012
Feb. | Fatal Forecast: An Incredible True Tale of Disaster and Survival at Sea by Michael J. Tougias |
Mar. | The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft by Ulrich Boser |
Apr. | American Bloomsbury : Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau : their lives, their loves, their work by Susan Cheever |
May | Sacco and Vanzetti : the men, the murders, and the judgment of mankind by Bruce Watson |
Sep. | The Big House : a Century in the Life of an American Summer Home by George Howe Colt |
Oct. | Samuel Adams : father of the American Revolution by Mark Puls |
Nov | A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger |