A book club for adults who love to read and discuss history! Copies of the current book are available at the Check Out Desk on the main level. No registration is necessary. Contact Diane at the Reference Desk (715) 346-1548 with questions.
Upcoming Discussions:
The ghosts of Eden Park : the bootleg king, the women who pursued him, and the murder that shocked jazz-age America
by Karen Abbott
Cancelled
6:30pm Pinery Room
Empire of the summer moon : Quanah Parker and the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history
by S.C. Gwynne
Time and location will be annouced
Previous Paging through the Past Book Club Selections:
2015
Jan – The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard
Feb – Flags of Our Fathers by James D. Bradley and Ron Powers
Mar – The Land Remembers: The Story of a Farm and Its People by Ben Logan
Apr – The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman
May – Aug – No discussions held
Sep – The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
Oct – Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, Its People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History by Denise Gess and William Lutz
Nov – Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Mark Harris
Dec – The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson
2016
Jan – King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild
Feb – Salt: a World History by Mark Kurlansky
Mar – The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789 by Joseph J. Ellis
Apr – The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra by Helen Rappaport
May – The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir by Kao Kalia Yang
Sep – Oregon Trail: a New American Journey
Oct – Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson
Nov – Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Pamela Smith Hill (Editor)
Dec – Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard
2017
Jan- The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer by Skip Hollandsworth
Feb – The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero by Timothy Egan
Mar – Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World by Matthew Goodman
Apr – To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 by Adam Hochschild
May – JFK's Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and The Emergence of a Great President by Thurston Clarke
Jun – Professor and the Madman: a Tale of murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
Jul – Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott
Aug – Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
Sep – Out of the Northwoods: The Many Lives of Paul Bunyan, With More Than 100 Logging Camp Tales by Michael Edmonds, Rotary Room
Oct – Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War by Steve Sheinkin
Nov – Angels of the Underground: The American Women who Resisted the Japanese in the Philippines in World War II by Theresa Kaminski
Dec – Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
2018
Jan - The Ghost map : the story of London's most terrifying epidemic-- and how it changed science, cities, and the modern world by Steven Johnson
Feb - Zookeeper’s Wife: a war story by Diane Ackerman
Mar - The radium girls : the dark story of America's shining women By Kate Moore
Apr - In the kingdom of ice : the grand and terrible polar voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides
May - The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
Jun - The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston
Jul - The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming
Aug - The Train to Crystal City: FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America's Only Family Internment Camp During World War II by Jan Jarboe Russell
Sep - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Oct - Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany by Norman Ohler, Shaun Whiteside
Nov - Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick
Dec - Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World by Jill Jonnes
2019
Jan - The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin
Feb - Hidden figures : the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race by Margot Lee Shetterly
Mar - The suspicions of Mr. Whicher : a shocking murder and the undoing of a great Victorian detective by Kate Summerscale
Apr - Hero of the empire: the Boer War, a daring escape and the making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard
May - Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson
Jun – No Meeting
Jul - Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan
Aug - The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln's Ghost by Peter Manseau
Sep – Rogue heroes: the history of the SAS, Britain's secret Special Forces unit that sabotaged the Nazis and changed the nature of war by Ben Macintyre
Oct – The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
Nov –The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple by Jeff Guinn
Dec – Studying Wisconsin: The Life of Increase Lapham, early chronicler of plants, rocks, rivers, mounds and all things Wisconsin by Martha Bergland, Paul G. Hayes
2020
Jan - A woman of no importance : the untold story of the American spy who helped win World War II by Sonia Purnell
Feb - The Pioneers: the heroic story of the settlers who brought the American ideal west by David McCullough
Mar - The ghosts of Eden Park : the bootleg king, the women who pursued him, and the murder that shocked jazz-age America by Karen Abbott
Apr - Empire of the summer moon : Quanah Parker and the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history by S.C. Gwynne