Let's start the process of selecting our next NON-FICTION book for group discussion. What would you like to read and talk about?

Please post the title, author name and a link to where we can read and learn more about your book suggestion. The more info you give the more weight your suggestion will hold. We need to know that if your book is selected you plan to participate in the discussion. So say a few words about why you're suggesting the book please.

So what should we discuss in May through July 2019?

I thought the next book discussion wouldn't start until May.


I thought the options offered for the current discussion that didn't get picked were pretty good. Besides those, I was personally eyeing:
1. Capital in the 21st Century by Piketty
2. Making of the Atomic Bomb by Rhodes
3. Endless Forms Most Beautiful by Carroll.

You are totally correct! That was a mistake. I will fix it when I'm on my computer. May, June and July are the next reading period. Thank you!

Twelve Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson would be an excellent Booktalk selection. I am nearly finished reading it and find it constantly illuminating and provocative and insightful.

Peterson provides superb psychological analysis of key problems in modern culture with highly intelligent but controversial advice about what to do about them. This book has sold more than three million copies over the last year or so.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Rules_for_Life

Guardian Summary: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/ ... ested-read

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/12-Rules-Life-An ... 0345816021

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drjordanpeterson/

Website: https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/

If it might be a good idea to read a book one thinks one might hate, just from a brief summary, then I suppose this book would be a worthy choice.

Looks like it may have been a mistake for me to include that Guardian caricature without reading it first. Oh well, at least it is entertaining. Should have realized they would only offer a derogatory mocking distortion that bears almost no resemblance whatever to the actual contents of the book apart from the chapter titles. The main principle of the Guardian summary seems to be that anyone who reads Nietzsche is a Nazi, so there is no need to engage with what such untermensch actually say. It goes to show how Peterson is highly provocative.

Guardian sure did slam the book.

America Day By Day _ Simone De Beauvoir. She undertook a lecture tour in 1947, starting in New York, and lasting about four months. This is her journal.

And yet Peterson is one of the most talked about current authors. I thought the Guardian "satire" was a typical deranged leftist libel, hiding aggressive stupid politics under the cover of comedy. For example, Peterson has a brilliant chapter on parental discipline, with no suggestion whatever of slapping children. The Guardian author looks to be so obsessed with the modern snowflake mentality of protecting the precious petals from reality that he maliciously and falsely tells people that Peterson recommends to slap their children. I just checked in my kindle and the word slap never even appears once in the whole book.

Correction: Peterson discusses "a swat across the backside" as something that "can indicate requisite seriousness on the part of a responsible adult" as part of an escalating range of possible responses. That is different from his critics' suggestion that he advocates slapping.

To see debate on this topic see https://twitter.com/classiclib3ral/stat ... 56?lang=en and https://www.christianconcern.com/our-is ... -parenting

There is an amazing decensored Reddit on this topic, showing how most comments supporting Peterson have been deleted, at https://snew.notabug.io/r/psychology/co ... unishment/

I'll be gone for a few days on a mini-vacation and I'm hoping to come back to see some great non-fiction book suggestions.

I would be interested in reading either Maps of Meaning or 12 Rules by Jordan Peterson. I’m trying to be open-minded despite some initial reservations, although I have to admit I can understand based on the little bit of YouTubing I’ve done, his appeal; he doesn’t put political correctness/sensitivity above the truth.