Books Read
1. Flaubert’s Parrot, Julian Barnes (AW sugg.). 10/12/04 (NS host).
2. Occidentalism, Ian Buruma & Aushal Margalit (RL sugg.). 11/9/04 (RL host).
3. Blindness, Jose Saramago (PN sugg.). 12/14/04 (PN host).
4. The Genius of Language, Wendy Lesser ed. (NS sugg.). 1/11/05 (CF host).
5. Villages, John Updike (RL sugg.). 2/8/05 (JC host).
6. The Future of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria (NS sugg.). 3/8/05 (AW host).
7. The Confessions of Max Tivoli, Andrew Greer (JC sugg.). 4/5/05 (KC host).
8. The Sovereignty Revolution, Alan Cranston (KC sugg.). 5/8/05 (NS host). Kim Cranston, ed.
9. The Western Canon, Harold Bloom (AW sugg.). 6/15/05 (RL host).
10. The Bridge on the Drina, Ivo Andric (NS sugg.). 7/13/05 (JC host).
11. Foreign Babes in Beijing, Rachel DeWoskin (RL sugg.). 9/13/05 (CF host).
12. Old School, Tobias Wolff (PN sugg.). 10/11/05 (AW host). Wolff invited, but a no-show.
13. Freakonomics, Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner (RL sugg.). 11/8/05 (RL host).
14. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (NS sugg.). 12/13/05 (DC host). Hosseini invited, but unable to come.
15. Over the Edge of the World, Laurence Bergreen (CF sugg.). 1/10/06 (NS host).
16. Irons in the Fire, John McPhee (GC sugg.). 2/13/06 (PN host).
17. Seven Men and Two Others, Max Beerbohm (DC sugg.). 3/14/06 (JC host)
18. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell (KC sugg). 4/10/06 (CF host).
19. The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, Gary Shteyngart (JC sugg). 5/8/06 (AW host).
20. The Sea, John Banville (AW sugg). 6/13/06 (KC host, at the beach)
21. The Memory of Running, Ron McLarty (PN sugg.). 7/11/06 (DC host)
22. Against Nature, Joris-Karl Huysmans (RL sugg.). 8/15/06 (RL host)
23. Conservatives Without Conscience, John Dean (CF sugg.). 9/12/06 (NS host)
24. The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman (KC sugg.). 10/18/06 (PN host)
25. Reading Lolita In Tehran, Azar Nafisi (JC sugg.). 11/14/06 (JC host)
26. A Dangerous Friend, Ward Just (GC sugg.). 12/12/06 (DS host)
27. King Leopold’s Ghost, Adam Hochschild (DC sugg.). 1/9/07 (AW host)
28. The Road, Cormac McCarthy (AW sugg.). 2/13/07 (RL host)
29. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, Bill Bryson (NS sugg.). 3/13/07 (CF host)
30. The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov (DS sugg.). 4/17/2007 (DC host)
31. A Wild Sheep Chase, Haruki Murakami (PN sugg.). 5/8/2007 (PN host)
32. The Meme Machine, Susan Blackmore (RL sugg.). 6/12/2007 (KC host, at the beach)
33. The Left Hand of God, Michael Learner (CF sugg.). 7/10/2007 (JC host)
34. The Female Brain, Louann Brizendine (KC sugg.) 8/14/2007 (NS host)
35. Blood and Oil, Michael Klare (JC sugg.) 9/4/2007 (AW host)
36. Platte River, Rick Bass (GC sugg.) 10/9/2007 (RL host)
37. The Plague, Albert Camus (DC sugg.) 11/13/2007 (DC host)
38. The File on H, Ismail Kadre (AW sugg.) 12/11/2007 (DS host)
39. The Force of Reason, Oriana Fallaci (JC sugg.) 1/22/2008 (KC host)
40. The Nose & The Overcoat, Nikolai Gogol (DS sugg.) 2/11/2008 (CF host)
41. The Bible, Karen Armstrong (PN sugg.) 3/10/2008 (PN host)
42. Descartes’ Baby, Paul Bloom (RL sugg.) 4/8/2008 (JC Host)
43. Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the West, Dale Morgan (CF sugg.) 5/10/2008 (DS host)
44. The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need, Daniel H. Pink (Author), Rob Ten Pas (Illustrator) (KC sugg.) 6/12/2008 (DC host)
45. Dancing at the Rascal Fair, Ivan Doig (NS sugg.) 7/8/2008 (KC host)
46. The Israel Lobby, Mearsheimer and Walt (JC sugg.) 9/8/2008 (AW host)
47. Being a Black Man: At the Corner of Progress and Peril, Staff of the Washington Post (DC sugg.) 10/14/2008 (JC host)
48. Dubliners, James Joyce (AW sugg.) 11/11/2008 (CF host)
49. The Leopard, Guiseppe di Lampedusa (NS sugg.) 12/9/2008 (NS host)
50. Cannery Row, John Steinbeck (DS sugg.) 1/13/2009 (DS host)
51. The Man Who Was Thursday, C.K.Chesterton (PN sugg.) 2/10/2009 (PN host)
52. Community in Conflict, R. Lenon, ed. (RL sugg.) 3/10/2009 (RL host)
53. The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008, Paul Krugman (CF sugg.) 4/14/2009 (CF host)
54. Here Comes Everybody: the power of organizing without organizations, Clay Shirky (KC sugg.) 5/12/2009 (NS host)
55. Roughing It, Mark Twain (JC sugg.) 6/16/2009 (JC host)
56. Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (GC sugg.) 7/21/2009 (KC host)
57. Where I'm Calling From, Raymond Carver (DC sugg.) 8/18/2009 (AW host)
58. Democracy in America (Vol.1: Intro,I-2,3;Vol.2: I-1,2,3,4,5, II-1,III-18,IV-6), Alexis de Tocqueville (AW sugg.) 9/8/2009 (PN host)
59. The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler (NS sugg.) 10/13/2009 (DC host)
60.*The Muslim Next Door: The Qur'an, the Media, and that Veil Thing, Sumbul Ali-Karamali (JC sugg.) 11/10/2009 (AW host)
61. Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov (DS sugg,) 12/08/2009 (NS host)
62. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf (PN sugg.) 1/12/2010 (RL host)
63. Justice: What's the Right Thing To Do?, Michael J. Sandel (CF sugg.) 2/9/2010 (JC host)
64. The Secular Bible: Why Nonbelievers Must Take Religion Seriously, Jacques Berlinerblau (JC sugg.) 3/9/2010 (RS host)
65. Best Short Stories, Guy de Maupassant (DC sugg.) 4/13/2010 (CF host)
66. Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer, James L. Swanson (GC sugg.) 5/18/2010 (DC host)
67. Letters from Prison, Adam Michnik (KC sugg.) 6/8/2010 (AW host)
68. The Fall, Albert Camus (AW sugg.) 7/13/2010 (KC host)
69. Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald (NS sugg.) 8/17/2010 (NS host)
70. Birds Without Wings, Louis de Bernieres (DS sugg.) 9/14/2010 (PN host)
71. California Crack Up, Joe Matthews and Mark Paul (PN sugg.) 10/13/2010 (DC host)
72.The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins (PN sugg.) 11/9/2010 (JC host)
73. How the Irish Saved Civilization (CF sugg.) 12/14/2010 (RS host)
74. *Change By Design, Tim Brown (KC sugg.) 1/11/2011 (KC host)
75. Rhino Ranch, Larry McMurtry (GC sugg.) 2/8/2011 (CF host)
76. Hope Dies Last, Studs Terkel (DC sugg.) 3/8/2011 (JC host)
77. The Art Instinct, Denis Dutton (AW sugg.) 4/19/2011 (PN host)
78. The Man of Property, John Galsworthy (NS sugg.) 5/17/2011 (NS host)
79. The Clock of the Long Now, Stewart Brand (PN sugg.) 6/15/2011 (DC host)
80. My Name Is Red, Orhan Pamuk (RL sugg.) 7/18/2011 (RL host)
81. Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama, Marvin Kalb and Deborah Kalb (CF sugg.) 8/9/2011 (PN host)
82. Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky (KC sugg.) 9/13/2011 (GC host)
83. Dead Souls, Nikolai Gogol (DS sugg.) 10/11/2011 (AW host)
84. The Bellini Madonna, Elizabeth Lowry (JC sugg.) 11/7/2011 (KC host)
85. We Meant Well, Peter Van Buren (GC sugg.) 12/13/2011 (NS host)
86. Endurance, Alfred Lansing (DC sugg.) 1/10/2012 (DC host); guest: Rob Flint
87. The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes (AW sugg.) 2/15/2012 (DS host)
88. A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean (NS sugg.) 3/13/2012 (RL host)
89. The Natural Man, Ed McClanahan (DS sugg.) 4/10/2012 (CF host)
90. Civilization: The West and the Rest, Niall Ferguson (PN sugg.) 5/9/2012 (GC host)
91. The Violence of Peace, Stephen L. Carter (CF sugg.) 6/12/2012 (PN host)
92. The Art of War, Sun Tzu (Griffith trans.) (KC sugg.) 7/9/2012 (KC host at the beach)
93. Scenes from Village Life, Amos Oz (JC sugg.) 8/14/2012 (RL host)
94. The Varieties of Romantic Experience, Robert Cohen (GC sugg.) 9/11/2012 (NS host)
95. Men at Arms, Evelyn Waugh (DC sugg.) 10/9/2012 (AW host)
96, The Tetherballs of Bougainville, Mark Leyner (AW sugg.) 11/13/2012 (DC host)
97. On Being Certain, Robert A. Burton, MD (RL sugg.) 12/11/2012 (CF host)
98. A Death in the Family, James Agee (NS sugg.) 1/14/2013 (PN host)
99. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (DS sugg.) 2/12/2013 (DS host)
100. *One Summer in Arkansas, Marcia Kemp Sterling (Group sugg.) 3/12/2013 (GC host)
101. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz (PN sugg.) 4/9/2013 (JC host)
102. Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain (CF sugg.) 5/7/2013 (AW host)
103. Red Sorghum, Mo Yan (JC sugg.) 6/11/2013 (RL host)
104. From Dictatorship to Democracy, A Conceptual Framework for Liberation, Gene Sharp (KC sugg.) 7/9/2013 (KC host)
105. True Grit, Charles Portis (NS sugg.) 8/13/2013 (NS host)
106. Cities of the Plain, Cormac McCarthy (DC sugg.) 9/10/2013 (CF host)
107. Vintage Munro, Alice Munro (AW sugg.) 10/8/2013 (DC host)
108. The Winter Queen, Boris Akunin (DS sugg.) 11/12/2013 (JC host)
109. 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein (PN sugg.) 12/10/2013 (GC host)
110. Ordeal by Hunger, George R. Stewart (CF sugg.) 1/14/2014 (PN host)
111. Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, Vendela Vida (JC sugg.) 2/11/2014 (RL host)
112. Destiny Disrupted, Tamim Ansary (PN sugg.) 3/11/2014 (DS host)
113. About Love, Anton Chekhov (DC sugg.) 4/8/2014 (CF host)
114. The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt (RL sugg.) 6/10/2014 (GS host)
115. An Argument against Abolishing Christianity, Jonathan Swift and The Fight, William Hazlitt (AW sugg.) 7/15/2014 (AW host) [rescheduled fm May]
116. Just Kids, Patti Smith (NS sugg.) 8/12/2014 (NS host)
117. The Mystery of Consciousness, John Searle (GS sugg.) 9/10/2014 (JC host)
118. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky (DS sugg.) 10/14/2014 (DS host)
119. The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, Tom Rackman (PN sugg.) 11/11/2014 (DC host)
120. The Limits of Power, Andrew J. Bacevich (CF sugg.) 12/9/2014 (RL host)
121. The Drundard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, Leonard Mlodinow (KC sugg.) 1/14/2015 (GC host)
122. Redeployment, Phil Klay (JC sugg.) 2/10/2015 (RL host)
123. The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan (GC sugg.) 3/10/2015 (PN host)
124. Citizens of London, Lynne Olson (DC sugg.) 4/14/2015 (CF host)
125. The Sea-Wolf, Jack London (AW sugg.) 5/12/2015 (AW host)
126. Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (NS sugg.) 6/9/2015 (GS host)
127. Guns, Steel and Germs, Jared Diamond (GS sugg.) 7/14/2015 (GS host)
128. The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty, Vendetta Vida (PN sugg.) 8/11/2015 (JC host)
129. The Big Four, Oscar Lewis (CF sugg.) 9/7/2015 (KC host)
130. The Metropolitan Revolution, Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley (KC sugg.) 10/14/2015 (NS host)
131. Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali (JC sugg.) 11/10/2015 (RL host)
132. Gulliver's Travels, Parts III & IV, Jonathan Swift (AW sugg.) 12/8/2015 (GC host)
133. Fat City, Leonard Gardner (NS sugg.) 1/13/2016 (DS host)
134. Touching the Void, Joe Simpson (GS sugg.) 2/9/2016 (PN host)
135. World Gone By, Dennis Lehane (DS sugg.) 3/8/2016 (NS host)
136. A talk on consciousness, Rick Lenon (unpublished) 4/12/2016 (RL host)
137. The Stranger, Albert Camus, and The Meursault Investigation, Kamel Daoud (PN sugg.) 5/10/2016 (JC host)
138. A Passion for Leadership, Robert M. Gates (CF sugg.) 6/14/2016 (GS host)
139. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari (KC sugg.) 8/10/2016 (KC host)
140. The Decameron (selected sections), Giovanni Boccaccio (AW sugg.) 9/13/2016 (GS host)
141. Travels with Epicurus, Daniel Klein (JC sugg.) 10/11/2016 (JC host)
142. The Oregon Trail, Rinker Buck (GC sugg.) 11/9/2016 (GC host)
143. Why Homer Matters, Adam Nicolson (DC sugg.) 12/13/2016 (DC host)
144. Season of the Witch, David Talbot (AW sugg.) 1/19/2017 (AW host)
145. Plainsong, Kent Haruf (NS sugg.) 2/20/2017 (NS host)
146. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed, Eric H. Cline (DS sugg.) 3/20/2017 (DS host)
147. The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen (PS sugg.) 4/17/2017 (PN host)
148. Ishi: In Two Worlds, Theodora Kroeber (CF sugg.) 5/15/2017 (CF host)
149. Submission, Michel Houellebecq (RL sugg.) 6/19/2017 (RL host)
150. Why Is Sex Fun? Jared Diamond (JC sugg.) 7/17/2017 (JC host)
151. Listen, Liberal: What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? Thomas Frank (CF sugg.) 8/21/2017 (CF host)
152. The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technology, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee (KC sugg.) 9/18/2017 (KC host)
153. The Shootist, Glendon Swarthout (GC sugg.) 10/16/2017 (GC host)
154. Nutshell, Ian McEwan (NS sugg.) 11/20/2017 (NS host)
155. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr (DS sugg.) 12/11/2017 (DS host)
156. Coming Apart, Charles Murray (RL sugg.) 1/15/2018 (RL host)
157. Manhattan Beach, Jennifer Egan (PN sugg.) 2/26/2018 (PN host)
158. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert B. Cialdini (KC sugg.) 3/19/2018 (KC host)
159. Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward (JC sugg.) 4/16/2018 (JC host)
160. Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders (GC sugg.) 5/29/2018 (GC host)
161 Spooky Action at a Distance, George Musser (TS sugg.) 6/18/2018 (TS host)
162. TransAtlantic, Colum McCann (NS sugg.) 7/16/2018 (NS host)
163. Bad Blood: : Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, John Carreyrou (PN sugg.) 8/20/2018 (PN host)
164. Natural Causes, Barbara Ehrenreich (RL sugg.) 9/24/2018) (RL host)
165. Educated, Tara Westover (JC sugg.) 10/29/2018 (JC host)
166. A Man Called Ove, Fredrik Backman (GC sugg.) 11/19/2018 (GC host)
167. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Yuval Noah Harari (KC sugg.) 12/20/2018 (KC host)
168. Butcher's Crossing, John Williams (NS sugg.) 1/21/2019 (NS host)
169. *The Last Billable Hour, Susan Wolfe (TS sugg.) 3/4/2019 (TS host)
170. Small Fry, Lisa Brennan-Jobs (DS sugg.) 3/18/2019 (DS host)
171. The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World, Andrea Wulf (PN sugg.) 4/15/2019 (JC host)
172. The Skull Mantra, Eliot Pattison (JH sugg.) 5/20/2019 (JH host)
173. The Evolution of Beauty, Richard Prum (RL sugg.) 6/18/2019 (RL host)
174. The True Believer, Eric Hoffer (KC sugg.) 8/20/2019 (KC host)
175. Aeneid Book VI, Seamus Heaney (tr) (GC sugg.) 10/29/2019 (GC host)
176. The Precisionists, Simon Winchester (JC sugg.) 11/18/2019 (PN host)
177. All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque (NS sugg.) 12/16/2019 (NS host)
178. The Spy and the Traitor, Ben Macintyre (TS sugg.) 1/20/2020 (TS host)
179. Catch-22, Joseph Heller (DS sugg.) 2/10/2020 (DS host)
180. Things Fall Apart, China Achebe (PN sugg.) 3/9/2020 (RL host)
181. Exhalation, Ted Chiang (RL sugg.) 4/20/2020 (RL host via Zoom)
182. In an Antique Land, Amitav Ghosh (JH sugg.) 5/18/2020 (JH host via Zoom)
183. Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder (KC sugg.) 6/22/2020 (KC host via Zoom)
184. To Each His Own, Leonardo Sciascia (JC sugg.) 7/20/2020 (JC host via Zoom)
185. The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead (GC sugg.) 8/17/2020 (GC host via Zoom)
186. Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann (NS sugg.) 9/21/2020 (NS host via Zoom)
187. Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson (TS sugg.) 10/19/2020 (TS host via Zoom)
188. The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary, Simon Winchester (DS sugg.) 11/16/2020 (DS host via Zoom)
189. Flights, Olga Tokarczuk (PN sugg.) 12/21/2010 (PN host via Zoom)
190. The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People's Economy, Stephanie Kelton (RL sugg.) 1/18/2021 (RL host via Zoom)
191. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, John Le Carré (JH sugg.) 2/15/2021 (JH host via Zoom)
192. *Tangled Roots, Marcia Kempt Sterling (KC sugg.) 3/15/2021 (KC host via Zoom)
193. Sand, a novel, Wolfgang Herndorf (JC sugg.) 4/19/2021 (JC host via Zoom)
194. I Am Not Sidney Poitier, Percival Everett (GC sugg.) 5/17/2021 (GC host in backyard)
195. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders (NS sugg.) 6/21/2021 (NS host in backyard)
196. Speak, Louisa Hall (TS sugg.) 8/9/2021 (TS host in backyard)
197. Damnation Spring, Ash Davidson (PN sugg.) 9/27/2021 (RL host on patio)
198. Klara and the Sun, A novel, Kazuo Ishiguro (RL sugg.) 10/18/2021 (RL host on patio)
199. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, elif Shafak (JH sugg.) 11/16/2021 (JH host on patio)
200. The Premonition, Michael Lewis (JC sugg.) 12/14/2021 (JC host on patio)
201. Anxious People, Fredick Backman (KC sugg.) 1/18/2022 (KC host via Zoom)
202. Horseman, Pass By, Larry McMurty (NS sugg.) 2/15/2022 (NS host on patio)
203. While Justice Sleeps, a novel, Stacey Abrams (TS sugg.) 3/22/2022 {TS host)
204. The Power of the Dog, Thomas Savage (GC sugg.) 4/25/2022 (GC host)
205. The Debt to Pleasure, John Lanchester (PN sugg.) 5/24/2022 (RL host on patio)
206. Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel (RL sugg.) 6/21/2022 (RL host on patio)
207. Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens (JH sugg.) 7/19/2022 (JH host on patio)
208. The Grocho Letters, Letters From and To Groucho Marx (KC sugg.) 8/16/2022 (KC host outside Pacific-coast cottage)
209. All the Secrets of the World, Steve Almond (JC sugg.) 9/20/2022 (JC host on patio)
210. Pereira Maintains, Antonio Tabucchi (NS sugg.) 10/18/2022 (NS host on patio)
211. Electrify, Saul Griffith (TS sugg.) 11/15/2022 (TS host outside)
212. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson (GC sugg.) 12/13/2022 (GC host in driveway)
213. Sourdough or, Lois and Her /Adventures in the Underground Market, a novel (PN sugg.) 1/17/2023 (RL host on patio)
214. My Gastronomical Me, M.F.K. Fisher (RL sugg.) 2/22/2023 (RL host)
215. Paradise, Abdulrazak Gurnah (JH sugg.) 3/21/2023 (JH host)
216. The Moon Is Down, John Steinbeck (KC sugg.) 4/18/2023 (KC host)
217. Twilight of Democracy: the seductive lure of authoritarianism, Anne Applebaum (JC sugg.) 5/16/2023 (JC host)
218. The Man Who Smiled, Henninb Mankell (GC sugg.) 6/20/2023 (GC Host)
219. Midwinter Break, Bernard MacLaverty (NS sugg.) 7/18/2023 (NS host)
220. The Emerald Mile, Kevin Fedarko (TS sugg.) 8/15/2023 (TS host)
221. The House of Broken Angels, Luis Alberto Urrea (PN sugg.) 9/19/2023 (RL host)
222. The Child and the River, Henri Bosco (RL sugg.) 10/17/2023 (RL host)
223. A Fever in the Heartland, by Tompthy Egan (JH sugg.) 11/21/2023 (JH host)
224. A Shining by Jon Fosse (KC sugg.) 12/19/2023 (KC host)
225. How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt (JC sugg.) 1/16/2024 (JC host)
226. Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance by Richard Powers (NS sugg.) 3/19/2024 (NS host)
227. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (TS sugg.) 4/16/2024 (TS host)
228. Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison (GC sugg.) 5/21/2024 (GC host)
229. Marigold and Rose by Louise Glück, and also Cataract by John Berger (RL sugg.) 6/18/2024) (RL host)
*The author was present