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What NON-FICTION book should we discuss Dec. 2019 through Feb.2020?
What non-fiction book should we discuss starting December 1, 2019?
This thread, by itself, will result in the selection of our next NON-FICTION book for community discussion. Often we have one thread for book suggestions and then subsequently a second thread is created for an actual book poll. This time we'll handle the whole process here in this thread so please get involved and help us pick something excellent for our next non-fiction group discussion.
How does this work? Here are the common sense rules...
Make a post in this thread with a book you think would make for a fun discussion. Include the book title, author name and a link to the book so people can click the link and read more about your suggested book. It never hurts to say a few words about why you're suggesting the book but this isn't absolutely necessary.
Do NOT suggest books in this thread if you're the author of the book or you are trying to promote the authors book. We welcome authors and publishers at BookTalk.org. If you're on BookTalk.org to promote a book do NOT do it here in this thread. Visit the Authors: Tell us about your non-fiction book! forum and post there. Please respect this rule.
Only suggest a book if you're going to actually participate in the discussion.
Do NOT suggest books or participate in this thread until you have 5+ posts on our forums.
Most importantly... please read the suggestions other people make and give feedback on those suggestions. Do you like their suggestion? Let us know. Do you think their book suggestion is too long, boring or complicated? Say so. Feedback is essential to this process.
Active members that have a history of participating in our book discussions will have their suggestions and feedback given extra weight especially in the event that multiple books are receiving an equal amount amount of enthusiasm or support. In other words it pays to be an established member with a track record of contributing to the book discussions. Many newcomers make a book suggestion and then vanish.
The book that receives the most positive feedback will be our December 2019, January & February 2020 NON-FICTION book!
Long ago we had a fantastic discussion of the book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. This one looks just as intriguing and apparently covers even more history.
Quote:
The received idea of Native American history–as promulgated by books like Dee Brown’s mega-bestselling 1970 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee–has been that American Indian history essentially ended with the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. Not only did one hundred fifty Sioux die at the hands of the US Cavalry, the sense was, but Native civilization did as well.
Growing up Ojibwe on a reservation in Minnesota, training as an anthropologist, and researching Native life past and present for his nonfiction and novels, David Treuer has uncovered a different narrative. Because they did not disappear–and not despite but rather because of their intense struggles to preserve their language, their traditions, their families, and their very existence–the story of American Indians since the end of the nineteenth century to the present is one of unprecedented resourcefulness and reinvention.
In The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, Treuer melds history with reportage and memoir. Tracing the tribes’ distinctive cultures from first contact, he explores how the depredations of each era spawned new modes of survival. The devastating seizures of land gave rise to increasingly sophisticated legal and political maneuvering that put the lie to the myth that Indians don’t know or care about property. The forced assimilation of their children at government-run boarding schools incubated a unifying Native identity. Conscription in the US military and the pull of urban life brought Indians into the mainstream and modern times, even as it steered the emerging shape of self-rule and spawned a new generation of resistance. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is the essential, intimate story of a resilient people in a transformative era.
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Re: What NON-FICTION book should we discuss Dec. 2019 through Feb.2020?
Solitary Finalist, National Book Awards 2019 for Nonfiction
Quote:
Solitary is the unforgettable life story of a man who served more than four decades in solitary confinement in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell, 23 hours a day, in notorious Angola prison in Louisiana, all for a crime he did not commit. That Albert Woodfox survived was, in itself, a feat of extraordinary endurance against the violence and deprivation he faced daily. That he was able to emerge whole from his odyssey within America’s prison and judicial systems is a triumph of the human spirit, and makes his book a clarion call to reform the inhumanity of solitary confinement in the U.S. and around the world.
Arrested often as a teenager in New Orleans, inspired behind bars in his early twenties to join the Black Panther Party because of its social commitment and code of living, Albert was serving a 50-year sentence in Angola for armed robbery when on April 17, 1972, a white guard was killed. Albert and another member of the Panthers were accused of the crime and immediately put in solitary confinement by the warden. Without a shred of actual evidence against them, their trial was a sham of justice that gave them life sentences in solitary. Decades passed before Albert gained a lawyer of consequence; even so, sixteen more years and multiple appeals were needed before he was finally released in February 2016.
Remarkably self-aware that anger or bitterness would have destroyed him in solitary confinement, sustained by the shared solidarity of two fellow Panthers, Albert turned his anger into activism and resistance. The Angola 3, as they became known, resolved never to be broken by the grinding inhumanity and corruption that effectively held them for decades as political prisoners. He survived to give us Solitary, a chronicle of rare power and humanity that proves the better spirits of our nature can thrive against any odds.
In this “landmark contribution to humanity’s understanding of itself” (The New York Times Book Review) social psychologist Jonathan Haidt challenges conventional thinking about morality, politics, and religion in a way that speaks to conservatives and liberals alike.
Drawing on his twenty five years of groundbreaking research on moral psychology, Haidt shows how moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings. He shows why liberals, conservatives, and libertarians have such different intuitions about right and wrong, and he shows why each side is actually right about many of its central concerns. In this subtle yet accessible book, Haidt gives you the key to understanding the miracle of human cooperation, as well as the curse of our eternal divisions and conflicts. If you’re ready to trade in anger for understanding, read The Righteous Mind.
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Re: What NON-FICTION book should we discuss Dec. 2019 through Feb.2020?
I vote for the Haidt book. It builds very well on the American Character book which I have just finished and want to discuss more. Only issue, it was previously a Booktalk selection in 2012 the-righteous-mind-by-jonathan-haidt-f199.html
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Re: What NON-FICTION book should we discuss Dec. 2019 through Feb.2020?
I read the Haidt book in 2012, but since I always get more from a nonfiction book with a second reading, I would welcome a reason to get into this book again.
The following user would like to thank LevV for this post: Chris OConnor
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Re: What NON-FICTION book should we discuss Dec. 2019 through Feb.2020?
DB Roy wrote:
Jung's Red Book?
There are bound to be other books by or on Jung that are far more accessible, but even so, much as I like Jung, his work seems to be a very niche type of interest.
And you would struggle to say the Red Book is non-fiction, since it is a rather crazy journal of channelling angels, deliberately evoking dramatic fantasy.
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Re: What NON-FICTION book should we discuss Dec. 2019 through Feb.2020?
Harari's "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" might work well for discussion, as you've got many smaller topics that people could dive into https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0525512179/
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How do computers and robots change the meaning of being human? How do we deal with the epidemic of fake news? Are nations and religions still relevant? What should we teach our children?
Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a probing and visionary investigation into today’s most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future. As technology advances faster than our understanding of it, hacking becomes a tactic of war, and the world feels more polarized than ever, Harari addresses the challenge of navigating life in the face of constant and disorienting change and raises the important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to survive.
In twenty-one accessible chapters that are both provocative and profound, Harari builds on the ideas explored in his previous books, untangling political, technological, social, and existential issues and offering advice on how to prepare for a very different future from the world we now live in: How can we retain freedom of choice when Big Data is watching us? What will the future workforce look like, and how should we ready ourselves for it? How should we deal with the threat of terrorism? Why is liberal democracy in crisis?
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Re: What NON-FICTION book should we discuss Dec. 2019 through Feb.2020?
Haidt's book has been on my list for years. I need to read it.
_________________ “In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
WE DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY - STORIES FROM THE FRONTLINE OF THE FUTURE By Mark Stevenson
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Our systems are failing. Old models – for education, healthcare, government, food production and energy supply – are creaking under the weight of modern challenges. As the world’s population heads towards 10 billion, it is clear we need new approaches. Futurologist Mark Stevenson set out to find them, across four continents uncovering an enthralling picture of what can be done to address the world’s most pressing dilemmas, a journey that offers a much needed dose of down-to-earth optimism. It is a window on (and a roadmap to) a different and better future.
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Re: What NON-FICTION book should we discuss Dec. 2019 through Feb.2020?
I haven’t read any of Haidt’s books, I would be in on a discussion as I am curious as to the evolution of the original discussion and what may have changed in the thinking of the original participants.
The Harari book looks interesting as well as the Mark Stevenson one, but Haidt’s is my first choice.
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