Titles read 2023/24

“Demon Copperhead: A Novel” Barbara Kingsolver

“Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury

“Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer

“Guardians of the Valley: John Muir and the Friendship that Saved Yosemite” by Dean King

“West With Giraffes: A Novel” by Lynda Rutledge

“The Marriage Portrait: A Novel” by Maggie O’Farrell

“Horse: A Novel” by Geraldine Brooks

“Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland” by Patrick Madden Keefe

“There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Ten Minutes That Changed History” by Rory Carroll

“Wastelands: The True Story of Farm Country (corporate hog farms) on Trial” by Corban Addison

“The Swerve: How the World Became Modern” by Stephen Greenblatt

Titles read 2022/23

“Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin’s Wrath”
Bill Browder

“Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor –the Truth and Turmoil”
Tina Brown

"American Disruptor, The Scandalous Life of Leland Stanford"
Roland de Wolk

“Who Killed Jane Stanford? : A Guilded Age Tale of Murder, Deceit, Spirits and the Birth of A University”
Richard White

“The White Devil's Daughters: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown”
Julia Flynn Siler

“The Lincoln Highway: A Novel”
Amor Towles

“Taste: My Life Through Food”
Stanley Tucci

“Miss Benson’s Beetle: A Novel”
Rachel Joyce

“The Promise” 
Damon Galgut

“Reading Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubles Times”
Azar Nafisi

"The Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown"
Anne Glenconner

Titles read 2021/22

“The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna: Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race"
Walter Isaacson

“The Premonition: A Pandemic Story”
Michael Lewis

“Klara and the Sun: A Novel”
Kazuo Ishiguro

“Sally Hemings, a Novel”
Barbara Chase-Riboud

“The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family”
Annette Gordon

“The Last Painting of Saran de Vos: A Novel”
Dominic Smith

“Blood and Oil: Mohammed Bin Salman’s Ruthless Quest for Global Power”
Justin Scheck & Bradley Hope

“MBS: The Rise to Power of Mohammed Bin Salman”
Ben Hubbard

“The Man Who Ate too Much: The Life of James Beard”
John Birdsall

Titles read 2020/21

"The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration”, Isabel Wilkerson

"The Last Leonardo: The Secret Lives of the World’s Most Expensive Painting", Ben Lewis

"Ill Winds: Saving Democracy From Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition and American Complacency", Larry Diamond

"Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics", Tim Marshall

“First: Sandra Day O’Conner” Thomas Evan

"The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz",
Erik Lawson

"What Stars Are Made Of: The Life of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin",
Donovan Moore

“Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk”, Kathleen Rooney

"Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom", Katherine Eban

"Circe", Madeline Miller

"The Library Book", Susan Orlean

"The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California",
Mark Arax

Titles read 2019/20

“The Browns Of California: The Family Dynasty That Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation”, Miriam Pawel

“Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup”, John Carreyrou

“Where the Crawdads Sing”, Delia Owens

"Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir",
Ruth Reichl

"Becoming"
Michelle Obama

“Sign My Name to Freedom: A memoir of a Pioneering Life”, Betty Reid Soskin

“So You Want to Talk About Race”, Ijeomi Olua

"The Woman Who Smashed Codes",
Jason Fagone

“Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II”, Liza Mundy

“Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World ” ,
Clive Thompson

“Silent Spring: the Classic That Launched the Environmental Movement”,
Rachel Carson

Titles read 2018/19

“Elizabeth, the Queen:
The Life of a Modern Monarch”,
Sally Bedell Smith

“Little Fires Everywhere”,
Celeste Ng

“Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies”,
Ross King

“Jackie, Janet & Lee: The Secret Lives of Janet Auchincloss and Her Daughters, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwill”,
J. Randy Taraborrelli

“Last Hope Island: Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of the War”,
Lynne Olson

“The Alice Network: A Novel”, Kate Quinn

“Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice”,
Bill Browder

"The Master",
Colm Toibin
( a novel about Henry James)

"My War, My Life" ,
K. Sophie Stallman

Titles read 2017/18

Ten Restaurants That Changed America,
Paul Freedman

Out of Line: A Life Playing With Fire,
Barbara Lynch (restaurateur & chef)

32 Yolks: From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line,
Eric Rupert

The Garden of Evening Mist,
Tan Twan Eng

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,
J D Vance,

Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town,
Brian Alexander

Art of Rivalry, Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art
(Matisse/Picasso, Manet/Degas, Pollock/de Kooning & Freud/Bacon) 
Sebastian Smee

Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life,
Sally Beddell Smith

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI,
David Gann

A Gentleman in Moscow,
Amor Towles

Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization, Steven Solomon

Where the Water Goes: Life & Death Along the Colorado River, David Owen

Roma Amor: A Novel of Caligula’s Rome,
Sherry Christie

Titles read 2016/17

Titan, Life of John D. Rockefeller,
Ron Chernow

All the King's Men,
Robert Penn Warren

The Man Without a Face,
Vladimir Putin,
Masha Gessen

The Edge of the Orchard,
Tracy Chevalier

Tangled Vines:Greed, Murder,
Obsession and an Arsonist,
Frances Dinkelspiel

Caleb's Crossing,
Geraldine Brooks

Immortal Irishman:Irish
Revolutionary Who Became
an Anerican Hero,
Timothy Egan

Indian Summer:Secret History
of the End of an Empire,
(non-fiction)
Alex Von Tunzelmann

What the Body Remembers, (fiction)
Shauna Singh Baldwin

Without You There Is No Us,
Suki Kim

Titles read 2015/16

Go Set a Watchman &
To Kill a Mockingbird,
Harper Lee
The Mockingbird Next Door,
Marja Mills

Elon Musk,
Ashlee Vance
The Innovators,
Walter Isaacson

The Ingenious Mr Pyke: Inventor, Fugitive, Spy,
Henry Hemming

The Housekeeper and the Professor,
Yoko Ogawa

History of the World in 6 Glasses,
Tom Standage

The Good Lord Bird,
James McBride

Sheba: Through the Desert in Search of the Legendary Queen,
Nicholas Clapp

Americanah,
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Meursault Investigation,
Kamel Daoud
The Stranger,
Albert Camus

Titles read 2013/14

Subject: Anne Morrow Lindbergh &
Charles Lindbergh

Strapless,
Deborah Davis

The Black Count,
Tom Reiss

Leonardo's Swans,
Karen Essex

Brunelleschi's Dome,
Ross King

Wolf Hall,
Hilary Mantel

Margaret Fuller,
Megan Marshall

When Everything Changed,
Gail Collins

Old Filth,
Jane Gardam

Last Train to Zona Verde,
Paul Theroux

Titles read 2012/13

Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness,
Alexandra Fuller

1491, Charles Mann

Golden Gate, Kevin Starr

Birdseye, Mark Kurlansky

Brave Escape of Edith Wharton,
Connie Wooldridge

Age of Innocence,
Edith Wharton

Wild Swans, Jung Chang

Citizens of London, Lynne Olson

Empire of the Summer Moon,
S. C. Gwynne

Leonardo and the Last Supper,
Ross King

Michelangelo & the Pope's Ceiling,
Ross King

Titles read 2011/2012

Lost in Shangri-La,
Mitchell Zuckoff

The Greater Journey,
David McCullough

The Paris Wife, Paula McLain

Cleopatra: A Life, Stacy Schiff

At Home, Bill Bryson

The Creative Habit,
Twyla Tharp

Steve Jobs, Walter Issacson

The Hare with Amber Eyes,
Edmund de Waal

In the Garden of the Beasts,
Erik Larson

Bonfire of the Vanities,
Tom Wolfe

The Big Burn, Timothy Egan

Titles read 2010/2011

The Big Short, Michael Lewis

Down and Out in Paris & London, George Orwell

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,
Philip K. Dick

The Way We Live Now,
Anthony Trollope

The Long Goodbye,
Raymond Chandler

Clara's Kitchen: Wisdom, Memories and Recipes from the Great Depression,
Clara Cannucciari

Tortilla Flats, John Steinbeck

100 Years of Solitude,
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham, a Biography,
Selina Hastings

American Gods, Neil Gaiman

For Whom the Bell Tolls,
Ernest Hemingway

Matterhorn, Karl Marlantes

Titles read 2009/2010

The Great Wave,
Christopher Benfey

Outliers, 
Malcolm Gladwell 

The Woman Behind the New Deal: The life of Frances Perkins,
Kirsten Downey

Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her,
Melanie Rehak

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society,
Annie Burrows 

The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of
Cornelius Vanderbilt,
T.J. Stiles

Middlesex,
Jeffrey Eugenides 

Hidden in the Shadow of the Master: The Model-Wives of Cezanne, Monet & Rodin,
Ruth Butler

The Ultimate Trophy: 
How the Impressionist Painting Conquered the World, 
Philip Hook

The Humming Bird’s Daughter, 
Luis Alberto Urrea

Titles read 2008/2009

The World's Religions,
Huston Smith 

Angle of Repose/Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs,
Wallace Stegner 

Alice Waters & Chez Panisse,
Thomas McNamee
Art of Simple Food,
Alice Waters 

The Book Thief, 
Markus Zusak 
Ender’s Game,
Orson Scott Card

The Custom of the Country,
Edith Wharton

DeKooning,
Mark Stevens & Annalyn Swan 
Vermeer’s Hat, 
Timothy Brook

The Distant Land of My Father,
Bo Caldwell 

The Brain that Changes Itself,
 Norman Dodge 

Coal River, 
Michael Shnayerson 

Taking on the Trust, (Ida Tarbell)
Steve Weinberg 

Titles read 2007/2008

My Life in France
Julia Child &
Alex Prud’Homme 

Suite Francaise
Irene Nemirovsky 

A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini 

Water for Elephants: A Novel 
Sara Gruen 

Walt Disney: The Triumph of American Imagination 
Neal Gabler

The Inheritance of Loss 
Kiran Desai 

Plato & a Platypus: Walk Into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy through Jokes
Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein 

Girl of Hyacinth Blue 
Susan Vreeland

The Rescue Artist
Edward Dolnick 

Encounters with the Archdruid 
John McPhee

Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Dessert, Shaper of Nations 
Georgia Howell 

Titles read 2006/2007

Garlic & Sapphires, Ruth Reichl

Brick Lane, Monica Ali 

White Guilt, ShelbySteele 

The Known World, Edward Jones

Hetty, the Genius and Madness of America’s First Female Tycoon ,
Charles Slack

The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton

Freakonomics,
Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner 

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man,
John Perkins

Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs 

The Lost Painting , Jonathan Harr

Cadillac Desert, the American West and Its Disappearing Water,
Marc Reisner

The Engineer of Human Souls, 
Josef Skvorecky & Paul Wilson

Lipstick Jihad, Azadeh Moaveni 

Queen of Fashion,
What Marie Antoinette wore to the Revolution,
Caroline Weber

Titles read 2005/2006

Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow

China Inc.: How the Rise of the Next
Superpower Challenges America & the World.
Ted Fishman

Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi

The Peabody Sisters: Three Women
Who Ignited American Romanticism.
Megan Marshal

Of Paradise & Power:
America & Europe in the New World Order.
Robert Kagan

United States of Europe, T.R. Reid

Subject: President John Kennedy and his assassination in Dallas
Members choose a book to read for background
Speaker: Karen Croft

The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini

Power Politics (Non-Fiction)
God of Small Things (Fiction)
Arundheti Roy

King of California,
Mark Arax & Rick Wartzman

Epitaph for a Peach: Four Seasons On My Family Farm,
David Mas Masumoto

Trendy, Current Authors
The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,Dave Eggers

Titles read 2004/2005

Churchill: A Biography, Roy Jenkins

Truth and Beauty, Ann Patchett

Jane Austen Book Club, Karen Joy Fowler

Bel Canto, Ann Patchett

Woodrow Wilson:Profiles in Power,
John Thompson

Tuxedo Park, Jennet Conant

The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson

Soldier Sahibs, Charles Allen

1984 & Animal Farm, George Orwell

A World Lit Only by Fire,
William Manchester

Titles read 2003/2004

Guns, Germs & Steel, Jared Diamond

Wealth and Democracy, Kevin Phillips

One Thousand White Women,
Jim Fergus

The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown

History of Salt, Mark Kurlansky

Truman, David McCullough

Marie Antoinette, Antonia Fraser

Catherine the Great, Henry Troyat

The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell

Titles read 2002/2003

The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy

Longitude and Attitudes, Thomas Friedman

Paris to the Moon, Adam Gopnik

Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan

Royal Road to Romance, Richard Halliburton

John Adams, David McCullough

Midnight's Child, Salman Rushdie

Nothing Like It In The World,
Stephen Ambrose

Titles read 2001/2002

Freedom From Fear, David Kennedy

The Whitney Women,
Flora Miller Biddle

From Beirut to Jerusalem,
Thomas Friedman

Islam: A Short History,
Karen Armstrong

California's Daughter,
Emily Wortis Leider

Imperial San Francisco, Gray Brechin

Founding Brothers, Joseph Ellis

A Peace to End All Peace,
David Fromkin

The Soong Dynasty, Sterling Seagrave

Daughters of China,
Meihong Xu & Larry Engleman

Titles read 2000/2001

Silver Kings, Oscar Lewis

The Rise of Teddy Roosevelt,
Edmund Morris

Front Row at the White House,
Helen Thomas

Duveen, S.N. Behrman

Five Sisters, James Fox

Scoundrel Monger, William Safire

Ladies and Not-So-Gentle Women, Alfred Allan Lewis

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Amanda Foreman

Titles read 1999/2000

The Silicon Boys, David Kaplan

The Art of Scandal: The Life and Times of Isabel Gardner,
Douglas Shard Tucci

The Education of Henry Adams, Henry Adams

Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden

Big Alma, Bernice Scharlach

Love is Eternal, Irving Stone

Tale of Genji, Lady Muraski Shikibu

The Big Four: The Story of Huntington, Stanford, Hopkins and Crocker, and the Building of the Central Pacific,
Oscar Lewis

The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story,
Michael Lewis

Titles read 1998/99

Personal History, Katherine Graham

The Dark Side of Camelot,
Seymour Hersh

American Sphinx, Joseph Ellis

Florence Harding, Carl Anthony

George Washington, A Life,
Willard Sterne Randall

Passionate Sage, The Character and Legacy of John Adams,
Joseph Ellis

No Ordinary Time, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt,
Doris Kearns Goodwin

Titles read 1997/98

Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope

Middlemarch, George Eliot

Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen

Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

Wives and Daughters,
Elizabeth Gaskell

A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley

Titles read 1996/97

The Old Maid, Edith Wharton

Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton

Washington Square, Henry James

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

The Country of Pointed Firs,
Sarah Orne Jewett

My Antonia, Willa Cather

House of Seven Gables,
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Moby Dick, Herman Melvlle

Titles read 1995/96

Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

Treasure Island,
Robert Louis Stevenson

Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert

Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw

The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James

David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

Moonstone, Wilkie Collins

Titles read 1994/95

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins

The Picture of Dorian Gray,
Oscar Wilde

Far From the Madding Crowd,
Thomas Hardy

Beatrix Potter Biography
The Tailor of Gloucester, Beatrix Potter

Sense & Sensibility, Jane Austen

North & South, Elizabeth Gaskell

Titles read 1993/94

Vanity Faire, William Thackery

Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

Emma, Jane Austen

Tess of the D'Urbervilles,
Thomas Hardy

Adam Bede, George Eliot

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

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