12/14/2025 we start the first 60 pages of A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles

12/7/2025 The Culture War Comes to the Kitchen, by Sophie Gilbert (see email to get access to this       article)

11/30/2025 we will finish How to Do Nothing, by discussing chapter 6 and the conclusion

 From 10/5/2025-11/30/2025 we have been reading How to Do Nothing, by Jenny Odell.

 On July 20, 2025, we start Sea Change, a Message of the Oceans, by Sylvia Earle (1995)

The reading schedule is as follows:

July 20 Introduction and Chapter 1

July 27 Chapter 2 

August 3 Chapter 3

August 10 Chapters 4 & 5

August 17 Chapters 6 & 7

August 24 Chapters 8 & 9

August 31 Chapter 10

September 7 Chapter 11

September 14 Chapters 12 & 13

September 21 Chapters 14 & 15

September 28 Chapters 16 & 17

Books to vote on

books to vote on

title and author	description	proposed	price	pg	rank
New PBS Series, THE FUTURE OF NATURE	role of carbon in our planet, and the power of nature in helping to restore and stabilize our ecosystems.	Marcella	$0	4 parts	2
Sea Change A Message of the Oceans by Sylvia Earle	once the gripping adventure story of Earle’s three decades of undersea exploration, an insider’s introduction to the dynamic field of marine biology, and an urgent plea for the preservation of the world’s deteriorating ocean ecosystems	Marcella	$21	360	1
Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen in Bill Buford	cubed carrots and scalding pasta water on his quest to learn the tricks of the trade. His love of Italian food then propels him further afield: to Italy, to discover the secrets of pasta-making and, finally, how to properly slaughter a pig. Throughout, Buford stunningly details the complex aspects of Italian cooking and its long history, creating an engrossing and visceral narrative stuffed with insight and humor	Kevin	$2	336
The Places In Between by Rory Stewart	Through these encounters—by turns touching, confounding, surprising, and funny—Stewart makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance that shape life in the map's countless places in between Afganastan	Kevin	$2	299
Walking to Vermont by Deckle Edge	This book, from the author of the acclaimed bestseller The Cat Who Covered the World, will delight not just hikers, walkers, and other lovers of the outdoors, but also anyone who contemplates retirement, wonders about foreign correspondents, or relishes a lively, off-beat adventure, even when it unfolds close to home.	Kevin	$2	288
Happiness by Darrin M. McMahon	draws on a multitude of sources, including art and architecture, poetry and scripture, music and theology, and literature and myth, to offer a sweeping intellectual history of man’s most elusive yet coveted goal.	Kevin	$2	560
A Gentleman in Moscow, a novel by Amor Towles	In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery	Kathy	$2	496	3
How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell	Far from the simple anti-technology screed, or the back-to-nature meditation we read so often, How to do Nothing is an action plan for thinking outside of capitalist narratives of efficiency and techno-determinism. Provocative, timely, and utterly persuasive, this book will change how you see your place in our world.	Sharon	$2	256	4
A Universal History of the Destruction of Books by Fernando Baez	investigation into the motives behind the destruction of books, reading man's violence against writing as a perverse anti-creation. "By destroying," Báez argues, "man ratifies this ritual of permanence, purification and consecration; by destroying, man brings to the surface a behavior originating in the depth of his personality." His findings ultimately attest to the lasting power of books as the great human repository of knowledge and memory, fragile yet vital bulwarks against the intransigence and barbarity of every age.	Kathy	13	272	3

On 4/27 we start Free Speech by Corey Brettschneider

 On 4/27 we start Free Speech by Corey Brettschneider

	pg
5/11/25	83
5/18/25	105
6/1/25	131
6/8/25	end

On 3/23 we start American Cultural Shifts: Examining the Issues That Are Tearing Our Country Apart

 On 3/23 we start American Cultural Shifts: Examining the Issues That Are Tearing Our Country Apart

	pg	chp
3/23/25	65	5
3/30/25	117	9
4/6/25	177	13
4/13/25	end	end