Book Club for Liberal Thinkers

IF YOU ARE ONLY INTERESTED IN FINDING THE BOOKS READ BY Book Club for Liberal Thinkers, SCROLL DOWN....

I don't think I have ever blogged about the book club I started in May 2005, so here it goes. In 2004 I took a "sabbatical" from work and devoted much of my time to the politics of the day, that is to say to the failed election of John Kerry. In so doing, I became involved with MoveOn.org (com, pac, take your pick). Though all of my adult life I had been left leaning in my politics, I had never really become "involved" in any meaningful way short of signing a few petitions and writing my representatives a few letters. Bush changed all that for me (and for millions of other Americans) and MoveOn played a major role in helping us to have a voice and find a way to express it meaningfully. Through MoveOn, I hosted several "Political Parties". Each of the 6 or 7 parties drew from 10 to 20 people. A few became forever online friends and three became actual friends.

Kerry lost the election in 2004, but the fight was just starting and continued on for four years leading to the wondrous and hopeful conclusion of electing Barack Obama as our next President, but I digress. The second most important result of MoveOn and its many influences was the creation of Book Club for Liberal Thinkers, whose members included myself, my three MoveOn Party friends and about four other friends or friends of friends. There have been a few who have left us, one who left and came back and the political party friends have remained throughout. This is why and how the club got it's name. We don't necessarily read political books, though we have read a few, but a meeting doesn't go by when besides for discussing the book, we don't also
"talk turkey".



OK, enough with history and explanation. Here is a list of the books we have read. I have added an asterisk or 2 or 3 for the books that I really liked and would recommend.

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LIST OF BOOKS READ BY BOOK CLUB for LIBERAL THINKERS SINCE MAY 2005

1 The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

2 My Year of Meats by Ruth L. Ozeki *

3 The Good Wife by Stewart O'Nan

4 Spending : A Utopian Divertimento by Mary Gordon *

5 My Dream of You by Nuala O'Faolain

6 1984 by George Orwell **

7 One Thousand White Women : The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus, ***

8 Atonement by Ian McEwan *

9 The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates *

10In Cold Blood by Truman Capote ***

11Power by Linda Hogan

12Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham *

13Pearl by Mary Gordon *

14The Professor of Desire by Philip Roth

15Moral Disorder and Other Stories by Margaret Atwood

16What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller *

17One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

18Winner of the National Book Award by Jincy Willett

19The People's Act of Love by James Meek

20The Places in Between by Rory Stewart (very interesting)

21The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer **

22The Wholeness of a Broken Heart by Katie Singer *

23 A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini ***

24The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini ***

25Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross (interesting)

26Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (interesting AND won Pulitzer)

27Any Place I Hang My Hat by Susan Isaacs

28Audacity of Hope : Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama *

29History of Love by Nicole Krauss *

30Persepolis : The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi ***

Persepolis 2 : The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi ***

31American Pastoral by Philip Roth *

32Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami, Philip Gabriel (Translator)

33The Echo Maker by Richard Powers *

34Plan B 3.0 : Mobilizing to Save Civilization by Lester R. Brown

35The Sportswriter by Richard Ford

36. Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs

37. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan*

38. We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates*

39. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Laheri*

40. Suite Francais by Irene Nemirovsky*

41. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortens

42. March by Geraldine Brooks***

43. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout*

44. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

45. Kindred by Octavia E. Butler*

46.The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows**

47. Dune by Frank Herbert

48. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

49. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald*

50. Little Bee: A Novel by Chris Cleave**

51. The Gilead by Marilynn Robinson

52. The Hamlet by William Faulkner

53. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

54. Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

55. A Mercy by Toni Morrison

56.  Interpreter of  Maladies by Jhumpa Laheri*

57. Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

58. The Help by Kathryn Stockett

59. 41 Stories by O. Henry

60. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro


61. Cry The Beloved Country by Alan Paton


62. Another Roadside Attraction  by Tom Robbins


63. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert


64. The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obrecht


65. Summer by Edith Wharton


66. The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa


67. Netherlands by Joseph O'Neill


68. Room by Emma Donaghue


69.  The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman


70. The Lover by Marguerite Duras

So, my friends, go forth and READ.....................................