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)

July 23, 2024:  Go as a River, by Shelley Read (320 pages)

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

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 Fatby 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 01/30/2024.