The Nature Conservancy Book Group
Things to come and a list of titles read over the years.
Discussions in the Boulder Public Library Arapahoe Conference Room with a Zoom option for those who prefer to meet remotely. Meeetings are usually on 4th Tuesdays at Noon Mountain Time. Readers from the public are welcome. For further information contact Jeannie (cojeannie AT gmail DOT com) or, if Jeannie is on walkabout, Bill (bill4gb AT gmail DOT com).
2024
January 23, 2024: Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout (336 pages)
February 27, 2024: Island Beneath the Sea, by Isabel Allende (592 pages)
March 26, 2024: Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis, by Annie Proulx (208 pages)
April 23, 2024: Free Thinker: Sex, Suffrage, and the Extraordinary Life of Helen Hamilton Gardener, by Kimberly A Hamlin (400 pages)
May 28, 2024: North Woods, by Daniel Mason (384 pages)
June 25, 2024: Erosion: Essays of Undoing, by Terry Tempest Williams (352 pages)
July 23, 2024: Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, by James McBride (512 pages)
August 27, 2024: Go as a River, by Shelley Read (320 pages)
September 24, 2024: The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, by David Grann (528 pages)
October 22, 2024: While Justice Sleeps, by Stacey Abrams (544 pages)
November 19, 2024:
Moll Flanders, by Daniel Defoe (121 pages (Project Gutenberg))
(Note: This is the third Tuesday in November)
2023
January 24, 2023: West With Giraffes, by Lynda Rutledge (371 pages)
February 21, 2023: Dictionary of Lost Words, by Pip Williams (416 pages)
March 28, 2023: Flirting with French, by William Alexander (288 pages)
April 25, 2023: The Winter's Tale, by William Shakespeare
May 23, 2023: Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy, by Jamie Raskin (428 pages)
June 27, 2023: Hannah Coulter, by Wendell Berry (208 pages)
July 25, 2023: The Hummingbird's Daughter, by Luis Alberto Urrea (499 pages)
August 22, 2023: The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (110 pages)
October 3, 2023:
A History of the World in 6 Glasses, by Tom Standage (336 pages)
(Note: This is the discussion for September's book)
October 24, 2023:
The Song of the Lark, by Willa Cather (392 pages)
There is a copy online at
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44/44-h/44-h.htm.
November 28, 2023: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid (400 pages)
2022
January 19, 2022: Mary Queen of Scots, by Antonia Fraser (Chapters 1 through 16)
February 16, 2022: Gorky Park, by Martin Cruz Smith (365 pages)
March 16, 2022: Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe (192 pages)
April 20, 2022: The Giver of Stars, by Jojo Moyes (416 pages)
May 18, 2022: The Anomaly, by Hervé Le Tellier (399 pages)
June 15, 2022: A Thousand Acres, by Jean Smiley (384 pages)
July 27, 2022: Running with Sherman, by Christopher McDougall (352 pages)
August 24, 2022:
All's Well that Ends Well, by William Shakespeare
Two Shakespeare's Garden pictures from Cathy K:
pomegranate and
marjoram.
September 28, 2022: Grayson, by Lynne Cox (153 pages)
October 26, 2022: Dracula, by Bram Stoker (352 pages)
November 23, 2022: The Accidental Tourist, by Anne Tyler (339 pages)
December 28, 2022: The Professor and the Madman, by Simon Winchester (256 pages)
2021
January 20: Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk
February 17: Once Upon a River, by Diane Setterfield
March 17: Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, by Trevor Noah
April 21: To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf
May 19: Hamnet, by Maggie O'Farrell
June 16: Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
July 21: A Midsummer Night's Dream, by William Shakespeare
August 18: The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich
September 15: The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery
October 20: The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers, by Eric Weiner
November 17: Death of an Amiable Child, by Irene Marcuse
2020
January 3: The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative, by Florence Williams
February 21: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, by Italo Calvino
March 13 at Noon: The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, by Claire Tomalin
June 18: The Plover, by Brian Doyle
July 15: Rough Beauty: Forty Seasons of Mountain Living, by Karen Auvinen
August 19: A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles
September 16: A discussion of various books on Racism in America - The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, I'm Still Here by Austin Channing Brown, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, So you want to talk about race by Ijeoma Oluo, The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, and The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
October 21: The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov
November 18: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indgenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kemmerer
December 16 at 4PM: In the Midst of Winter, by Isabelle Allende
2019
January 31: Cloudstreet, by Tim Winton
February 28: Less, by Andrew Sean Greer
March 28: Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
April 25: There There, by Tommy Orange
June 13: The Outrun, by Amy Liptrot
July 19: Mink River, by Brian Doyle
August 23: Becoming, by Michelle Obama
September 30: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo
November 1: A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II, by Sonia Purnell
December 2: The Spectator Bird, by Wallace Stegner
2018
January: The Matisse Stories, by A. S. Byatt
March: The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin
April: A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway
May: The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon, by Kevin Fedarko
June: My Own Words, by Ruth Bader Ginsburg
August: A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
September: Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi
October: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, by Sherman Alexie
November: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard
December: The Art Forger, by B. A. Shapiro
2017
January: The Genius of Birds, by Jennifer Ackerman
February: The Illegal, by Lawrence Hill
March: Lab Girl, by Hope Jahren
April: The Yard, by Alex Grecian
May: The Taming of the Shrew, by William Shakespeare
June: Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, by J. D. Vance
July: The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts, by Joshua Hammer
August: Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather
September: My Conscience: An Exile's Memoir of Burma, by U Kyaw Win (author present)
October: Magpie Murders, by Anthony Horowitz
November: Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice, by Bill Browder
December: Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders
2016
January: The Signature of All Things, by Elizabeth Gilbert
February: The Water Knife, by Paolo Bacigalupi
March: East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
April: A Man Called Ove, by Fredrick Backman
June: The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, by Candice Millard
July: The Wives of Los Alamos, by TaraShea Nesbit
August: America America, by Ethan Canin
September: Cloud Chamber, by Michael Dorris
October: Stormy Weather, by Carl Hiaasen
November: The Winter of Our Discontent, by John Steinbeck
December: Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West, by Dorothy Wickenden
2015
January: Seven Generations: An American Family, by Margaret Martin (author present)
February: Me Before You, by Jojo Moyes
March: Brave Young Americans, We Love You: The Diary of Raymonde Delaître, translated from the French by her daughter Sylvie Pennaforte
April:
The Prologue, The Wife of Bath, and The Miller's Tale from The Canterbury Tales, by Chaucer
Note: You can find what looks like the J. U. Nicolson translation for this selection
here (pdf - 42 pages),
built from here (html).
May: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain
June: All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr
August: The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt
September: Spare Parts, by Joshua Davis
October: The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, by Tom Reiss
November: The Beekeeper's Apprentice, by Laurie King
December: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce
2014
January: Casual Vacancy, by J.K. Rowling
February: The Beast in the Garden, by David Baron (author present)
March: The Tremor of Forgery, by Patricia Highsmith
April: Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
May: Dinner With Osama, by Marilyn Krysl (author present)
July: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, by Charles Mann
August: Dear Life, by Alice Munro
September: A Man in Full,
by Tom Wolfe
November: The Housekeeper and the Professor,
by Yoko Ogawa
December: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves,
by Karen Joy Fowler
2013
January: The Sun also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
February: Tinkers, by Paul Harding
April: Chief Left Hand, by Margaret Coel (author present)
May: The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach
June: The Round House, by Louise Erdrich
July: The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, by Timothy Egan
August: Lucky You,
by Carl Hiaasen
September: The Wild Trees, by Richard Preston
October: Mariano’s Crossing, by David M. Jessup (author present)
November: Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn
December: Notes from Underground,
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Note: You can find the Project Gutenberg Constance Garnett translation here (pdf)
or here (html).
2012
January: The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein
February: The Selected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Everyman edition
March: Little Bee, by Chris Cleave
May: Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West, by Hampton Sides
June: Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America, by Helen Thorpe
July: God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, by Christopher Hitchens
August: Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, by David Brooks
September: Palace Walk, by Naguib Mahfouz
November: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
December: Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese
2011
January: Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri
February: The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel, by Diane Setterfield
March: The Third Man Factor: Surviving the Impossible, by John Geiger
April: Sky Bridge, by Laura Pritchett
May: Lost on Planet China, by J. Maarten Troost
June: A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan (author joined the discussion by conference call)
July: The Lacuna: A Novel, by Barbara Kingsolver
August: Let the Great World Spin: A Novel, by Colum McCann
September: The Living, by Annie Dillard
October: The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
November: Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, by Paul Theroux
December: Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
2010
February: 1776, by David McCullough
March: HighwireMoon, by Susan Straight
April: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
May: Where Rivers Change Direction, by Mark Spragg
June: Here If You Need Me, by Kate Braestrup
July: Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
August: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
September: Claiming Ground, by Laura Bell
October: The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver
2009
January: Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad
Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, by Carol Tavris
and Elliot Aronson
February: Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization,
3rd. Edition, by Lester Brown
March: The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai
April: Mountains Beyond Mountains, Healing the World: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, by Tracy Kidder
May: A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini
June: Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming, by Paul Hawken
July: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon
August: The Future of Ice: A Journey Into Cold, by Gretel Ehrlich
September: My Life in France, by Julia Child, Alex Prud'homme
October: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski
November: The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience, by Kirstin Downey
December: Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson
2008
January: The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell
February: A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains, by Isabella Bird
March: Nature's Keepers: The Remarkable Story of How The Nature Conservancy Became the Largest Environmental Organization in the World, by Bill Birchard
April: The Good Earth, by Pearl Buck
May: Two in the Far North, by Margaret E. Murie
June: From Here You Can't See Paris: Seasons of a French Village and Its Restaurant, by Michael S. Sanders
July: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, by Rebecca Wells
August: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver
September: Traveling Mercies, by Annie LaMotte
October: Speaking of Faith: Why Religion Matters and How to Talk About It, by Krista Tippett
December: The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman
2007
January: The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
February: When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, by Le Ly Hayslip, Jay Wurts
March: The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World, by A.J. Jacobs
April: Isabel's Daughter, by Judith Hendricks
May: New and Selected Poems, by Mary Oliver
June: River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, by Peter Hessler
July: The Secret Knowledge of Water, by Craig Childs
August: Size 12 Is Not Fat, by Meg Cabot
September: The Shadow of Man, by
Jane Goodall
October: The
Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman
November: The Dive from Clausen's Pier, by Ann
Packer
December: The Land of Little Rain,
by Mary Hunter Austin
2006
January: Snow, by Orhan Pamuk
February: Tales of a Female Nomad, by Rita Golden Gilman
March: Daughter of the Saints, by Dorothy Allred Solomon
April: Finding Darwin's God, by Kenneth Miller
May: A Match to the Heart, by Gretel Ehrlich
June: The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
July: A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle
August: The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy
September: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins
December: Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, A Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt, by David McCullough.
2005
January: Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden and Our Lady of the Forest, by David Guterson
February: The Flight of the Iguana, by David Quammen
March:Refuge, by Terry Tempest Williams
April: I Don't Know How She Does It, by Allison Person
May: The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd
June: The Beak of the Finch, by Jonathan Weiner
August: Latina, by Lillian Castillo-Speed
September: The Devil Wears Prada , by Lauren Weisberger
November: The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
December: Hard Truth, by Nevada Barr
2004
February: And Their Children After Them: The Legacy of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, by Dale Maharidge
March: Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, by David Brooks
April: Peace Like a River, by Lief Unger
May: I Thought My Father was God: And Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project, by Paul Auster, editor
June: Sandhill Sundays and Other Recollections, by Mari Sandoz
July: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
August: So Many Enemies, So Little Time: An American Woman in All the Wrong Places, by Elinor Burkett
November: Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi
To see Discussion Group Founder Jeannie's favorites from this list:
http://www.sackett.net/FavoritesJeannieTNC.htm.
This is http://www.sackett.net/TNCBoulder.htm.
Last updated 10/02/2024.
