The Biography & Nonfiction book club held its organizational meeting on September 19, 2009 and it is well on its way! The group will meet on the second Sunday of each month at 3:00 pm at the Lakeview Branch of the Peoria Public Library. The members have chosen the first four books to be discussed, as listed below.
Please email or call Roberta Koscielski (309-497-2186 or RobertaKoscielski@ppl.peoria.lib.il.us ) with any questions or if you need assistance in reserving a library copy of any of these titles.
2010 Schedule
Sunday, January 10:
Discussion of Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris.
Review of Pictures at a Revolution from Publishers Weekly magazine: While one might think that the films discussed in this book have been thoroughly plumbed (The Graduate; Bonnie and Clyde; In the Heat of the Night; Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?; Dr. Dolittle), Entertainment Weekly writer Harris offers his take in this thorough and engaging narrative. Instead of simply retelling old war stories about the production of these five Best Picture nominees at the 1968 Oscars, Harris tells a much wider story. Hollywood was on the brink of obsolescence throughout the 1960s as it faced artistic competition from European art films and financial implosion due to an outdated production system and rising budgets. Harris doesn't shy away from complexity in favor of easy answers, and the personalities that he profiles—among them Sidney Poitier, Mike Nichols, Warren Beatty and Richard Zanuck—are certainly worthy of the three dimensional approach. Harris also peppers his narrative with moments that capture the rising cultural tide that broke in the late '60s: chipping away at the moralistic Production Code, and Hollywood's inconsistent engagement with the Civil Rights movement are continuous sources of interest throughout this fascinating book.
Sunday, February 14: The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard
After his humiliating election defeat in 1912, Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Together with his son Kermit and Brazil's most famous explorer, Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Roosevelt accomplished a feat so great that many at the time refused to believe it. In the process, he changed the map of the western hemisphere forever.
Sunday, March 14:
Sometimes Madness is Wisdom: Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald: A Marriage by Kendall Taylor
In Sometimes Madness Is Wisdom, Kendall Taylor has created the definitive Fitzgerald biography. Written with sympathy, original insight, and dazzling style-and featuring memorable appearances from Edmund Wilson, Gertrude Stein, and Ernest Hemingway, among others-this is a stunning portrait of a marriage, an age, and a fabulous but tragic woman. A compulsively readable book about the literary marriage of a great American writer and his talented yet often overlooked wife. This is being read to tie in with The Big Read: Peoria Reads The Great Gatsby.
Sunday, April 11: Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four, chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the days after the storm, he traveled the flooded streets in a secondhand canoe, passing on supplies and helping those he could. A week later, on September 6, 2005, Zeitoun abruptly disappeared. Dave Eggers's riveting nonfiction book, three years in the making, explores Zeitoun's roots in Syria, his marriage to Kathy — an American who converted to Islam — and their children, and the surreal atmosphere (in New Orleans and the United States generally) in which what happened to Abdulrahman Zeitoun was possible.
Sunday, May 16*:
Playing with the Enemy: A Baseball Prodigy, World War II, and the Long Journey Home by Gary Moore
Inspired by true events, Playing with the Enemy is the riveting story of a depression-era youth and his brush with destiny. Author Gary Moore, Gene's son, did not learn of his father's remarkable odyssey through World War II and the hardships of minor league baseball until the day before Gene's death. Confronted with evidence of a possible career in baseball, Gene finally broke his decades of silence and spent the next several hours relieving himself of the heavy burden he had been carrying. The stunning news sent the author on his own odyssey as he researched his father's life and interviewed dozens of people.
*Since May 9 is Mother’s Day, we will instead meet on May 16th.
Sunday, June 13:
War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign To Create a Master Race by Edwin Black
(1st half of the book)
Award-winning investigative journalist Edwin Black connects the crimes of the Nazis to a pseudoscientific American movement of the early 20th century called eugenics. Based on selective breeding of human beings, eugenics began in laboratories on Long Island but ended in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Cruel and racist laws were enacted in 27 U.S. states, and the supporters of eugenics included progressive thinkers like Woodrow Wilson, Margaret Sanger, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Ultimately, over 60,000 "unfit" Americans were coercively sterilized; a third of them after Nuremberg declared such practices crimes against humanity. This is a timely and shocking chronicle of bad science at its worst — with many important lessons for the impending genetic age.
Sunday, July 11:
War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign To Create a Master Race By Edwin Black (2nd half of the book)
Award-winning investigative journalist Edwin Black connects the crimes of the Nazis to a pseudoscientific American movement of the early 20th century called eugenics. Based on selective breeding of human beings, eugenics began in laboratories on Long Island but ended in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Cruel and racist laws were enacted in 27 U.S. states, and the supporters of eugenics included progressive thinkers like Woodrow Wilson, Margaret Sanger, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Ultimately, over 60,000 "unfit" Americans were coercively sterilized; a third of them after Nuremberg declared such practices crimes against humanity. This is a timely and shocking chronicle of bad science at its worst — with many important lessons for the impending genetic age.
Sunday, August 8: Columbine by David Cullen.
This is an astonishing account of two good students with lots of friends, who came to stockpile a basement cache of weapons, to record their raging hatred, and to manipulate every adult who got in their way. They left signs everywhere, described by Cullen with a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, thousands of pages of police files, FBI psychologists, and the boy's tapes and diaries, he gives the first complete account of the Columbine tragedy.
Sunday, September 12:
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
(1st half of book) by Kai Bird
J. Robert Oppenheimer is one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century; a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb for his country in a time of war, and who later found himself confronting the moral consequences of scientific progress. In this magisterial, acclaimed biography twenty-five years in the making, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin capture Oppenheimer's life and times, from his early career to his central role in the Cold War. This is biography and history at its finest, riveting and deeply informative.
Sunday, October 10:
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
(2nd half of book) by Kai Bird J.
Robert Oppenheimer is one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century; a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb for his country in a time of war, and who later found himself confronting the moral consequences of scientific progress. In this magisterial, acclaimed biography twenty-five years in the making, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin capture Oppenheimer's life and times, from his early career to his central role in the Cold War. This is biography and history at its finest, riveting and deeply informative.
Sunday, November 14:
For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago
(1st half of book)by Simon Baatz
It was a crime that shocked the nation, a brutal murder in Chicago in 1924 of a child, by two wealthy college students who killed solely for the thrill of the experience. A masterful storyteller, Simon Baatz has written a gripping account of the infamous Leopold and Loeb case. Using court records and recently discovered transcripts, Baatz shows how the pathological relationship between Leopold and Loeb inexorably led to their crime. This thrilling narrative of murder and mystery in the Jazz Age will keep the reader in a continual state of suspense as the story twists and turns its way to an unexpected conclusion.
Sunday, December 12:
For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago
(2nd half of book) by Simon Baatz
It was a crime that shocked the nation, a brutal murder in Chicago in 1924 of a child, by two wealthy college students who killed solely for the thrill of the experience. A masterful storyteller, Simon Baatz has written a gripping account of the infamous Leopold and Loeb case. Using court records and recently discovered transcripts, Baatz shows how the pathological relationship between Leopold and Loeb inexorably led to their crime. This thrilling narrative of murder and mystery in the Jazz Age will keep the reader in a continual state of suspense as the story twists and turns its way to an unexpected conclusion.
