AAA Book Club
The AAA Book Club is a men’s book club that has been meeting…well, just about forever, but at least since I joined in 2006. We only read nonfiction. The “AAA” stands for affordable, accessible, and…what? No one really remembers, but I think we’ve decided to settle on “apocalyptic,” given the number of books we read about the world going to hell in a handbasket.
Following is a list of all the books I’ve read with the book club. The book club’s list is about thirty titles longer, but I culled out the ones I didn’t read or don’t remember. The titles are listed from 2006 to present, in descending order. I would like to think that someday I might write little capsule reviews of each title, but the reality is I probably won’t find the time. 🙂
- God’s Politics, by Jim Wallis
- Wittgenstein’s Poker, by David Edmonds and John Eidinow
- On Writing, by Steven King
- For the Time Being, by Annie Dillard
- Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America, by Stephen Bloom
- Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond
- Einstein’s God: Conversations about Science and the Human Spirit, by Krista Tippett
- River of Doubt, by Candice Millard
- The Places in Between, by Rory Stewart
- Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, by Dava Sobel
- Girl Meets God, by Lauren Winner
- Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance, by Dr. Atul Gawande
- Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell
- Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods, by John McKnight and Peter Block
- Bayou Farwell, by Mike Tidwell
- Neither Wolf nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder, by Kent Nerburn
- River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, by Peter Hessler
- Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives, by Annie Murphy Paul
- 12 Steps to a Compassionate Life, by Karen Armstrong
- The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, by Jonathan Haidt
- Post American World 2.0, by Fareed Zakaria
- Healing the Heart of Democracy, by Parker Palmer
- Me the People: One Man’s Selfless Quest to Rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America, by Kevin Bleyer
- Wild, by Cheryl Strayed
- The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—but Some Don’t, by Nate Silver
- Consider the Lobster, by David Foster Wallace
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
- Reinventing Organizations, by Frederic Lalaux
- Life is a Miracle, by Wendell Berry
- The Sixth Extinction, by Elizabeth Kolbert
- Mindfulness in Plain English, by Bhante Gunaratana
- Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo
- Climate Change: A Very Short Intro, by Mark Maslin
- Pope Francis: Untying the Knots, by Paul Vallely
- The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, by Atul Gawande
- A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster, by Rebecca Solnit
- My Life With the Saints, by James Martin
- Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, by Daniel James Brown
- When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi.
- The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible, by Charles Eisenstein
- Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, by Barbara Demick
- The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben
- The Art of Community: Seven Principles for Belonging, by Charles Vogl
- A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota, edited by Sun Yung Shin
- Silence in the Age of Noise, by Erling Kagge
- Our Final Invention: AI and the End of the Human Era, by James Barrat
- Travels With Charlie, by John Steinbeck
- Educated: A Memoir, by Tara Westover
- The Second Mountain, by David Brooks
- Love Your Enemies, by Arthur C. Brooks
- Reclaiming Conversation, by Sherry Turtle
- An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives, by Matt Richtel
Photo credit: Min An on Pexels
