The HJL Book Club meets on the 3rd Wednesday of February, April, June, August and October.
Discussion Starts at 5:30PM
Fee: $5.00 donation to the Adopt-A-Collection Fund
You do not need to be a member of the Berks History Center to join the discussion.
We will provide beverages. We kindly ask that you bring a brown bag dinner.
If you have any book ideas or questions about Book Club, please email them to library@berkshistory.org
Remember, if your book is chosen, you get to lead the discussion!
Upcoming Selections
June 17, 2020: The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War by A.J. Baime
August 2020 and beyond: TBD
Books Read To Date
Enemies in the Rear: Or the Golden Circle Squared, by Francis Hoover – July 18, 2012
The Day Lincoln Was Shot, by Jim Bishop – October 17, 2012
A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812, by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich – January 16, 2013
The First Frontier: The Forgotten History of Struggle, Savagery, and Endurance in Early America, by Scott Weidensaul – April 24, 2013
Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness At the Fair That Changed America, by Erik Larson – June 19, 2013
Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation, by Andrea Wulf – August 21, 2013
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot – October 16, 2013
John Adams, by David McCullough – February 19, 2014 (Snow Date, March 19, 2014)
Triangle: The Fire That Changed America, by David von Drehle – April 16, 2014
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, by Candice Millard – June 18, 2014
Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History, by Erik Larson – August 20, 2014
One Summer: America, 1927, by Bill Bryson – October 15, 2014
Ike: An American Hero, by Michael Korda – February 18, 2015
The Johnstown Flood, by David G. McCullough – April 15, 2015
When Rackets Reigned, by Ed Taggert – June 17, 2015
The Worse Hard Time, by Timothy Egan – August 19, 2015
George Washington’s Secret Six, by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yeager – October 21, 2015
No Ordinary Time, by Doris Kearns Goodwin – February 17, 2016
A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn – The Last Great Battle of the American West, by James Donovan – April 20, 2016
The Girls of Atomic City, by Denise Kiernan – June 2016
The Manor: Three Centuries at a Slave Plantation on Long Island, by Mac Griswold – August 2016
The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream, by H. W. Brand – October 2016
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey, by Candice Millard – February 2017
The Wright Brothers, by David McCullough – April 2017
The Train to Crystal City: FDR’s Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America’s Only Family Internment Camp During World War II, by Jan Jarboe Russell – June 2017
The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars, by Paul Collins – August 2017
In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, by Erik Larson – October 2017
Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr, by Nancy Isenberg – February 2018
Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, by Margot Lee Shetterly – April 2018
Countdown to Pearl Harbor: The Twelve Days to the Attack, by Steve Twomey – June 2018
Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, by David Okrent – August 2018
Woodrow Wilson, by H.W. Brands – October 2018
Bloody Crimes: The Funeral of Abraham Lincoln and the Chase for Jefferson Davis, by James L. Swanson – February 2019
Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams, by Louisa Thomas – April 17, 2019
This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, by Drew Gilpin Faust – June 19, 2019
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, by Walter Isaacson – August 21, 2019
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, by J.D. Vance – October 16, 2019
Grant, by Ron Chernow – February 19, 2020
