Lunchtime get-togethers to talk about memoirs and non-fiction books that can help us build a better world.

Each talk explores three main themes. Below are some recommended titles available at the library, but feel free to share whatever you’re reading!

Build a Better World: Memoir

Thursday, August 10th  12:00-1:00 p.m.

Overcoming Personal & Family Challenges

Sheryl Sandberg, Option B

Jeanette Walls, The Glass Castle

Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

David Small, Stitches

Temple Grandin, Thinking in Pictures

Roxanne Gay, Hunger: A Memoir of My Body

Young People Changing the World

Malala Yousafzai, I am Malala

William Kamkwamba, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope

Sonia Nazario, Enrique’s Journey: The True Story of a Boy Determined to Reunite with His Mother

Jazz Jennings, Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen

Facing Social Issues

Carl Lynn and Susan Burton, Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women

Steven Hatch, Inferno: A Doctor’s Ebola Story

Joshua Hammer, The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: and Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts

Nicholson Baker, Substitute: Going to School with a Thousand Kids

Build a Better World: Non-fiction

Thursday, July 13th, 12:00-1:00 p.m.

Working Together in Society

Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists

Sebastian Junger, Tribe

David Brooks, The Social Animal

Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath

Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark

Racial Justice

Debby Irving, Waking Up White: and Finding Myself in the Story of Race

Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

John Edgar Wideman, Writing to Save a Life

The Fire This Time

James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son

Food, Climate, & Sustainability

Louise Gray, The Ethical Carnivore: My Year of Killing to Eat

Mark Kurlansky, The Food of a Younger Land

Michael Pollan, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual

Didi Pershouse, The Ecology of Care

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming