Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

Lab Girl is the most recent Non-Fiction Book Discussion pick, and participants for the most part said they enjoyed the book. It is the memoir of Hope Jahren, a geobiologist and teacher. Divided into three sections, it chronicles her hopes and dreams, as well as her setbacks.  The first section discusses her early years growing … Continue reading →

The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery

“The Soul of an Octopus” surprised me.  If I’m honest, I’m not even entirely sure of what brought me to pick this book up in the first place, but in the end, I’m glad I did.  “The Soul of an Octopus” follows author Sy Montgomery’s interactions with octopuses both in captivity and in the wild.  … Continue reading →

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

Who would ever imagine that a book about the Periodic Table of the Elements could be so enjoyed by anyone other than chemists or physicists? Well, Sam Kean did and the outcome was the VERY interesting Disappearing Spoon. And the attendees of the Non-Fiction Book Discussion could not agree more. First, any ideas where the … Continue reading →

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

This title was discussed at the Bartlett Library’s non-fiction book discussion on February 22, 2016. Stiff is, simply put, a book about dead bodies and how we, in this country, treat and feel about them.  Reading about such taboo subjects as decomposition and dissection made for a lively discussion! Highlights included: Whether or not you would … Continue reading →

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

It’s likely there have been enough books on the Wright brothers to fill up every inch of a small, or maybe even a medium size, library, but in The Wright Brothers, his new biography of the pioneers of flight, award-winning historian David McCullough adds another very worthy and very accessible volume on Wilbur and Orville. Continue reading →

Big Data Baseball by Travis Sawchik

The Pittsburgh Pirates had one of the longest streaks of losing seasons in professional sports history (20 straight) before posting a winning record in 2013. Travis Sawchik’s BigData Baseball: Math, Miracles, and the End of a 20-Year Losing Streakexplains in depth what The Pirates organization did to finally get back on the right track. Not … Continue reading →

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande

  In Being Mortal, Gawande looks at how medicine treats dying, both in terms of the old and the terminally ill. Through interviews and personal stories he discusses how medicine’s (and by extension nursing homes’) approach to dying is to put it off for as long as possible, but in countless situations this can run … Continue reading →