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Book Club

Since 2005, our members have met to discuss books on a variety of topics. Our book list is extensive and covers subjects relating to science, psychology, philosophy, politics, religion, critical thinking, non-theisms, science fiction, and seminal fictional works as well. We meet online and in-person for our book discussions. Visit our meetup page to join us and be part of the conversation!

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Book List
Below is the list of books we've discussed since 2005

Join us on our Meetup page in voting for and discussing our next book! 

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Readings discussed in chronological order from our very first reading endeavor in 2005 to our current one:

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  1. Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud 

  2. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

  3. American Fascists by Christopher Hedges 

  4. The Flying Spaghetti Monster by Bobby Henderson 

  5. Don't Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff 

  6. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D. Ehrman 

  7. God: The Failed Hypothesis by Victor J. Stenger 

  8. “Fears for Democracy in India (Hindu Fundamentalism)” by Martha C. Nussbaum 

  9. Why Darwin Matters by Michael Shermer 

  10. Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism by Susan Jacoby 

  11. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (2006) by Daniel C. Dennett 

  12. Animal Farm by George Orwell 

  13. Death by Black Hole by Neil DeGrasse Tyson 

  14. Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer by Bart Ehrman 

  15. Understanding the Intelligent Design Creationist Movement by Barbara Forrest 

  16. Does Science Make Belief in God Obsolete? by Templeton Foundation

  17. Power: A New Social Analysis by Bertrand Russell 

  18. Top Secret: The Truth Behind Today's Pop Mysticisms by Robert M. Price 

  19. Constitution for the United States of America

  20. Federalist Farmer Letter: http://www.constitution.org/afp/fedfar05.htm 

  21. James Madison's Introduction to the Bill of Rights: u http://www.usconstitution.net/madisonbor.html 

  22. House of Cards by Robyn Dawes 

  23. Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali 

  24. Why Evolution is True by Jerry A. Coyne 

  25. Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists by Dan Barker 

  26. "What Have the Infidels Done" and "What Would You Substitute for the Bible as a Moral Guide" by Robert Ingersoll http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/inginfid.htm#WTHD

  27. "The Limitations of Toleration" by Robert Ingersoll: http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/inglimtol.htm

  28. god.com: a deity for the new millennium by John A. Henderson 

  29. "Ghosts (Lecture)" by Robert Ingersoll 

  30. "What Shall We Do To Be Saved?" by Robert Ingersoll 

  31. "Individuality" by Robert Ingersoll 

  32. Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer 

  33. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan 

  34. The God Virus by Darrel Ray 

  35. How We Decide (2010) by Jonah Lehrer 

  36. Nomad (2010) by Ayaan Hirsi Ali 

  37. Secular City Limits by Matthew Barron 

  38. The Grand Design (2010) by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow 

  39. The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails (2010) by John W. Loftus 

  40. Worked Over: Corporate Sabotage of an American Community (2003) by Dimitra Doukas 

  41. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (2010) by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway 

  42. The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies--How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths by Michael Shermer

  43. A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment by Philipp Blom 

  44. The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution by Linda R. Monk 

  45. Robert Ingersoll, "The Gods" (1872): http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/gods.html

  46. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman 

  47. Free Will by Sam Harris

  48. "From Lost Cause to Third-and-Long: College Football and the Civil Religion of the South" by Eric Bain-Selbo at http://jsr.fsu.edu/Volume11/Selbo.htm

  49. The Big Questions by Steven E. Landsburg

  50. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson

  51. The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice by Christopher Hitchens

  52. The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human (2012) by Jonathan Gottschall

  53. "The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster

  54. What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Market (2012) by Michael Sandel

  55. “Evangelical Teaching: Dr. Cumming” (1855) by George Eliot

  56. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (2011) by Stephen Greenblatt

  57. Lying by Sam Harris

  58. Homo Mysterious: Evolutionary Puzzles of Human Nature by David P. Barash

  59. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

  60. "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" by Bill Joy

  61. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined (2011) by Steven Pinker

  62. This Explains Everything by John Brockman

  63. The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success by Kevin Dutton

  64. Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

  65. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

  66. Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

  67. The Unwinding: The Inner History of the New America by George Packer

  68. The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain

  69. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens

  70. The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science by Will Storr

  71. Think Like A Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain (2014) by Stephen D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

  72. Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King

  73. The Social Conquest of the Earth by E.O. Wilson

  74. Forged by Bart Ehrman

  75. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

  76. Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by Dan Fagin

  77. Spring Chicken: Stay Young Forever (or Die Trying) by Bill Gifford

  78. Righteous Mind: Why People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt

  79. Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans by Wendell Potter

  80. Heretic: Why Islam Needs A Reformation Now by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  81. Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver (started 1/17/16)

  82. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond (started 3/6/16)

  83. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer (started 6/5/16)

  84. Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg (started 7/31/16)

  85. How Not To Be Wrong by Jordan Ellenberg (started 9/18/16)

  86. The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux (started 11/13/16)

  87. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (started 1/29/17)

  88. White Trash: The 400-year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg (started 4/23/17)

  89. Foundation by Isaac Asimov (started 6/25/17)

  90. Winter is Coming by Garry Kasparov (started 8/6/17)

  91. Future of Tolerance by Sam Harris (started 9/24/17)

  92. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (started 10/22/17)

  93. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (started 12/3/17)

  94. Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker (started 1/28/18)

  95. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker (started 3/25/18)

  96. Tribe by Sebastian Junger (started 5/27/18)

  97. The End of Patriarchy by Robert Jensen (started 6/17/18)

  98. The Evangelicals by Frances FitzGerald (started 7/29/18) 

  99. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Harari (started 9/30/18)

  100. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (started 12/2/18)

  101. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman (started 2/10/19)

  102. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

  103. Them by Ben Sasse

  104. Plain Radical by Robert Jensen

  105. Upheaval by Jared Diamond (started 8/18/20)

  106. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann (started 10/20/19)

  107. The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson (started 12/1/19)

  108. Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of Human Future in Space by Carl Sagan (started 2/2/20)

  109. The Reality Bubble: Blind Spots, Hidden Truths, and the Dangerous Illusions that Shape Our World by Ziya Tong (started 3/29/20)

  110. Forbidden Fruit: The Ethics of Secularism by Paul Kurtz (started 5/10/20)

  111. Democracy in One Book or Less by David Litt (started 6/28/20)

  112. Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict by Harbinger Institute

  113. Authentically Black by John McWhorter

  114. Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer (started 11/8/20)

  115. The Triumph of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of Deception by David Michaels (started 12/27/20)

  116. A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn (started 2/14/21)

  117. The Known World by Edward P. Jones (started 5/9/21)

  118. The Overstory by Richard Powers (started 6/27/21)

  119. The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone (started  8/29/21)

  120. The Hidden History of American Healthcare by Thom Hartmann

  121. Capitalism in a World on Fire by Rebecca Henderson

  122. The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow

  123. Never Pay the First Bill: And Other Ways to Fight the Health Care System and Win by Marshall Allen (started 2/20/22)

  124. Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach 

125. An Outsider's Guide to Humans: What Science Taught Me About What We Do and Who We Are by Camilla Pang

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