Book & Film Discussions

Contact Maggie by email  at Librarian    MS     @gmail   .com   (no spaces) if you can co-host or if you are simply interested in seeing the event carried out (on a specific schedule that suits you because you would like to attend.)

Watch for the link to register for our Interest and organizational Meeting (tentatively Monday, Nov. 9 at a happy hour at UPSIDE SOCIAL above Rosslyn metro with a back-up date on ZOOM for folks with travel difficulties. At that meeting, we'll pitch these titles and set up a calendar for discussions and assign discussion leaders.

• Supporting Veterans After 50 Years of the All-Volunteer Force and 20 Years of War: Ideas Moving Forward (2022) by Joel Kupersmith, MD and General George W. Casey, Jr., Retired Chief of Army (and present Cornell Professor at the Johnson School of Business) 

• Poverty, By America  (2023) by Matthew Desmond

• The World's Worst Bet:  How the globalization gamble went wrong (and what would make it right) by David J. Lynch, of the Washington Post

• The Irish Goodbye - a novel ( 2025) by Heather Aimee O'Neill

• The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny - a novel (2025) by Kiran Desai-- a finalist for the Booker prize.

• If you would like CCW to list a book or long article (from FOREIGN AFFAIRS, or WIRED, or THE ATLANTIC as examples on which you would lead a discussion, please reach out to our VP of Community Service. 

DEFINITE Book Discussion announcement for Spring, 2026

SUPPORTING VETERANS (2022) link. 

Four Star General George W. Casey, Jr. is a Distinguished Lecturer on Leadership at Cornell's Johnson College of Business. His book Supporting Veterans After 50 Years of the All-Volunteer Force and 20 Years of War: Ideas Moving Forward (2022) examines 50 years of the All Volunteer Force (AVF) and new policy needs after 20 years of war. Get it. Read it. Sign up at CCW web site for discussion dates.   Find the book's executive summary at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B4WRPRKS/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1&asin=B0B4WRPRKS&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1  when you click on "sample" from the book's ordering page.  Book order page:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B4WRPRKS/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

Full Title:  Supporting Veterans After 50 Years of the All-Volunteer Force and 20 Years of War: Ideas Moving Forward

Discussion of the book may connect to...

• the lens of VUCA and management systems  General George W. Casey - Living in a VUCA world:  5 min video  -- Professor Casey 

• leadership concepts introduced by General Casey in his online interview with Meikles and Dimes, 2025 podcast (17 min.) which include...

• "You're no better than anyone, and no one is any better than you. So teach everyone with respect, and don't take guff from anyone."-- lesson from his Grandfather

• "Never be afraid to try to be the very best."  "It wasn't about me, it was about the organization." -- lesson from his Dad.

• "He insisted that we work from disciplined application of standards."-- lesson from Vince Lombardi for whom he was an assistant equipment manager

• "Be a man or woman of your word. If you tell someone you are going to do something, you either do it or you tell them why you are not going to do it. But being a man or woman of character is what gives leaders the moral authority that it takes to lead successfully today."

• "Never stop learning... If you stop l earning today, you are going to blown right past."

• 'Family is everything."

• Reflecting on having only 80 from arriving in Iraq to having a war plan to present to the US President, "In the army we used to say there are only 2 kinds of plans: those that might work, and those that won't work. And because we are human, the best we are going to do is a plan that might work. And we had to get used to that.... but we had to get a plan out to those who were going to work for us."

• On Humility:  "As I was climbing the ladder, I probably wasn't comfortable sitting in a meeting saying, 'I don't know the answer to that. ' But the higher I got the more I realized that I didn't know and respect that I could never know.  And so I had to be comfortable saying that ....The army added "humility" to the characteristics it's wanted all its leaders to have in 2019 when they published its second manual since 9/11.]... because we have] to accept the fact that we are human."  

• "Candor and transparency I find are critical for a leader in that position.... And what I found I had to do was say, 'Okay, I have to make a decision here. So here's how I see the situation, and because I see the situation this way, this is what I'm doing. If that situation changes, we're going to have to do something else...  And.. when I empowered  people who disagreed with me... I was empowering those people to come back to me and [tell me why] I was wrong,"

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How can we draw thoughtful people together to discuss ideas?  What about a series (maybe once a quarter or once a month) that gathers Cornellians ainto discussion around an important article (related to a foreign policy concept, a tech innovation, poverty as a problem)? As a focus we would probably need to select a reading that won't grow stale over the 6 weeks to list it, give people time to get it... and PR it with a sign-up. Not "this month's issue" but something within 3 months that won't grow stale? 

• online or in-person? Or both?  

• Brand it not as a book club but as an "idea exchange" (attending regularly is not a requirement)

• a moderator could run something about a list of 3 sources (film, book, article? or just 3 articles??) and people could prepare on 1 or all three. Or none and attend online.  

• Moderator prepares 3-8 questions related to each resource which might then become the structure of the discussion. Moderator presents "ground rules" for discussion that include sharing the floor... interaction.

• I think we could also simply promote an excellent podcast/lecture that Cornell puts online and gather folks for dinner to process, or online to process following that event. I just haven't had time to plunge into their calendar. Or we could consult such before formulating our theme and have that recorded podcast available as one of our resources.

• We could select from and promote Cornell University Press new releases and might even get the author to visit the discussion in person or online.

Books:

The Trojan War in Ancient Art by Cornellian Susan Woodford (1993) is available for purchase at Cornell University Press. It is a slim (134 pages), well illustrated volume with enjoyable text. It is used in this fall's Art History course online with George Mason U that Maggie is taking. If you want to address the book and accompany our discussion with a visit to the Smithsonian, reach Maggie by email  at Librarian    MS     @gmail   .com   (no spaces).

Dream Hoarders:  Maggie and Morgann (who serve on the CCW Board) are organizing a discussion of DREAM HOARDERS with hopes that Ivy League Alumni involved in awarding scholarships will be guided by the thought-provoking work of the book. Stay tuned to register for a fall discussion which will likely take place virtually. (But for CCW Board members, it could be an in-person discussion at a home in Falls Church or at an eatery in DC.)

ON CALL is the memoir of Dr. Anthony Fauci.  Contact Maggie by email  at Librarian    MS     @gmail   .com   (no spaces) if you can co-host a Fall 2025 discussion online, or it it could be an in-person discussion at a home in Falls Church or at an eatery in DC. With enough interest, we will try to engage Dr. Fauci in coming online with us for a few minutes of Q and A.

CONCUSSION911 is a short volume of research suggesting innovative immediate treatment when a person experiences a concussion. Contact Maggie if you want to attend a short introduction to that book. Buy it for your shelves if you are or have an athlete in the family or person who risks being concussed.  Cornellian Frances Teunis Meredith , MD (Class of '87) is one of its authors and can be brought online by Zoom for Q and A.