What we’re about
This book club is for people who enjoy reading non-fiction! Let's have fun reading and discussing informative, thought provoking books.
Our goal is to bring like minded individuals together who enjoy learning more about the world and would like to socialize over a good book.
Titles to span diverse subjects like economics, current events, politics, history, science, self-help, biographies, travelogues and memoirs. If it's non- fiction, it qualifies!
We'll meet at restaurants, wine bars, or casual dining spots mostly inside the Loop. New selections for future Meetups are selected at the end of each Meetup. They are based on member suggestions and chosen by popular vote. That means if you want to see a book you love as a featured selection, you need to be present at a Meetup!
Upcoming events (3)
See all- Kent State: An American TragedyCadillac Bar, Houston, TX
Longlisted for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction
A Kirkus Reviews and New Yorker Best Book of 2024
An ALA Notable BookA definitive history of the fatal clash between Vietnam War protestors and the National Guard, illuminating its causes and lasting consequences.
On May 4, 1970, at Kent State University in Ohio, political fires that had been burning across America during the 1960s exploded. Antiwar protesters wearing bell-bottom jeans and long hair hurled taunts and rocks at another group of young Americans―National Guardsmen sporting gas masks and rifles. At half past noon, violence unfolded with chaotic speed, as guardsmen―many of whom had joined the Guard to escape the draft―opened fire on the students. Two reductive narratives ensued: one, that lethal state violence targeted Americans who spoke their minds; the other, that law enforcement gave troublemakers the comeuppance they deserved. For over fifty years, little middle ground has been found due to incomplete and sometimes contradictory evidence.
Kent State meticulously re-creates the divided cultural landscape of America during the Vietnam War and heightened popular anxieties around the country. On college campuses, teach-ins, sit-down strikes, and demonstrations exposed the growing rift between the left and the right. Many students opposed the war as unnecessary and unjust and were uneasy over poor and working-class kids drafted and sent to Vietnam in their place. Some developed a hatred for the military, the police, and everything associated with authority, while others resolved to uphold law and order at any cost.
Focusing on the thirteen victims of the Kent State shooting and a painstaking reconstruction of the days surrounding it, historian Brian VanDeMark draws on crucial new research and interviews―including, for the first time, the perspective of guardsmen who were there. The result is a complete reckoning with the tragedy that marked the end of the sixties.
To learn more and make an Amazon purchase, go to: Kent State
- Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the EndMaggiano's Little Italy, Houston, TX
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review, NPR, and Chicago Tribune, now in paperback with a new reading group guide
Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming the dangers of childbirth, injury, and disease from harrowing to manageable. But when it comes to the inescapable realities of aging and death, what medicine can do often runs counter to what it should.
Through eye-opening research and gripping stories of his own patients and family, Gawande reveals the suffering this dynamic has produced. Nursing homes, devoted above all to safety, battle with residents over the food they are allowed to eat and the choices they are allowed to make. Doctors, uncomfortable discussing patients' anxieties about death, fall back on false hopes and treatments that are actually shortening lives instead of improving them.
In his bestselling books, Atul Gawande, a practicing surgeon, has fearlessly revealed the struggles of his profession. Here he examines its ultimate limitations and failures―in his own practices as well as others'―as life draws to a close. Riveting, honest, and humane, Being Mortal shows how the ultimate goal is not a good death but a good life―all the way to the very end.
To learn more and make an Amazon purchase, go to: Being Mortal
- The Librarians - Screening and Post-Film Discussion at MFAHMuseum of Fine Arts, Houston - Caroline Wiess Law Building, Houston, TX
Join us for an event at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. This is NOT a typical book club event as there is no book and it is not exclusive to the club. Please note that an RSVP here does NOT include a ticket to the event. Tickets are $9 must be purchased through MFAH using the link below.
The Librarians, which made its world premiere at Sundance, explores the urgent moment in which we find ourselves. As an unprecedented wave of book banning is sparked in Texas, Florida, and beyond, librarians under siege join forces as unlikely defenders fighting for intellectual freedom on the front lines of democracy, flanked by concerned community members and young readers. The Librarians is a chilling cautionary tale and rallying cry for freedom—told through the personal experiences of librarians and the everyday patriots who join their ranks in defense of books.
Post-film discussion with Oscar-nominated filmmaker Kim A. Snyder, executive producer Amber Alonso, and Texas librarians from the film; moderated by Randall Morton, founder and executive director of Progressive Forum Houston.
Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykll4MWltsQ
Purchase tickets: https://www.mfah.org/calendar/the-librarians
