Fireside Readers Book Discussion Group

Staff Contact:
Maureen Lerch

• Library Director
• Biography
• Phone: 330.684.8951
• Email: mlerch@uakron.edu 

The Fireside Readers Book Discussion Group was formed in October 2005.  Discussions are open to members of the area community, as well as college students, faculty and staff.  Over the past few years we have focused on discussing memoirs, biographies, and other works of nonfiction.  Several members of the group have been with us since the beginning, and others join us when we're reading a book of personal interest.

The group traditionally meets on the first Monday of the month, taking time off in the summer and over the winter holidays.  We meet from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. in the community room next to the library.  At each meeting light refreshments are served. 

Please join us for an upcoming meeting, even if you have not yet read or completely the month's selection.  New members and guests are always welcome!

Current Selections:

Monday, February 6, 2012:

• Driven West: Andrew Jackson and the Trail of Tears to the Civil War by A.J. Langguth

Monday, March 5, 2012:

• Outcasts United: A Refugee Soccer Team, an American Town by Warren St. John

Monday, April 9, 2012: (One week later due to a schedule conflict)

• Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie

Monday, May 7, 2012:

• Sideways on a scooter: life and love in India by Miranda Kennedy

Monday, June 4, 2012:

• Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard

Previous Selections:

• Ackerman, Diane.  The Zookeeper’s Wife.
• Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women
• Avlon, John. Wingnuts: how the lunatic fringe is hijacking America.
• Baker, Russell.  Growing up.
• Beah, Ishmael.  A long way gone: memoirs of a boy soldier.
• Beard, Jo Ann.  The boys of my youth.
• Boser, Ulrich. The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft.
• Bragg, Rick.  All over but the shoutin'.
• Bryson, Bill.  A walk in the woods : rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail.
• Chang, Leslie T. Factory girls: From village to city in a changing China.
• Child, Julia.  My life in France.
• Cohen, Rich.  Sweet and low: A Family Story.
• Conway, Jill K.  The road from Coorain.
• Drennan, William R. Death in a prairie house: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Murders.
• Egan, Timothy.  The Worst hard time: The untold story of those who survived the great American dust bowl.
• Eggers, Dave.  Zeitoun.
• Finkel, David. The Good Soldiers.
• Fuller, Alexandra.  Don't let's go to the dogs tonight: an African childhood.
• Gardner, Chris.  The pursuit of happyness.
• Gentil, Olivia.  Life list: A woman's quest for the world's most amazing birds.
• Gilbert, Elizabeth.  Eat, pray, love : one woman's search for everything across Italy, India and Indonesia.
• Gill, Michael Gates. How Starbucks saved my life: a son of privilege learns to live like everyone else.
• Goodwin, Doris Kearns.  No ordinary time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The home front in World War II.
• Goodwin, Doris Kearns.  Team of rivals: the political genius of Abraham Lincoln.
• Gordon, Linda.  Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits.
• Greenspan, Alan.  The age of turbulence : adventures in a new world.
• Gruenewald, Mary Matsuda.  Looking like the enemy: My story of imprisonment in Japanese-American internment camps.
• Heng, Liange.  Son of the Revolution.
• Hillenbrand, Laura.  Unbroken: a World War II story of survival, resilience, and redemption.
• Horan, Nancy.  Loving Frank : A Novel.
• Horwitz, Tony.  Confederates in the attic: Dispatches from the unfinished Civil War.
• Hunt, Irmgard A.  On Hitler’s mountain: Overcoming the legacy of a Nazi childhood.
• Johanyak, Debra.  Behind the veil: an American woman's memoir of the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis.
• Johnson, Steven. The ghost map: the story of London's most terrifying epidemic--and how it changed science, cities, and the modern world.
• Kennedy, Edward.  True Compass: A Memoir.
• Kimmel, Haven.  A Girl named Zippy: Growing up small in Moorland, Indiana.
• Kingsolver, Barbara.  Animal, vegetable, miracle: A year in food life.
• Kingston, Maxine Hong.  The woman warrior: memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts.
• Krakauer, Jon.  Into the wild.
• Kurson, Robert.  Shadow divers: The true adventure of two Americans who risked everything to solve one of the last mysteries of World War II.
• LaNeir, Carlotta Walls.  A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High.
• Larson, Erik.  The Devil in the White City: Murder, magic, and madness at the fair that changed America.
• Larson, Erik.  Thunderstruck.
• Lopez, Steve. The Soloist.
• Mah, Adeline Yen.  Falling leaves: the true story of an unwanted Chinese daughter.
• McCourt, Frank.  Teacher man: A memoir.
• McCullough, David G.  The Johnstown flood.
• Millard, Candice.  River of doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s darkest journey.
• Mortenson, Greg.  Three cups of Tea : one man's mission to fight terrorism and build nations -- one school at a time.
• Nafisi, Azar.  Reading Lolita in Tehran: A memoir in books.
• Norman, Elizabeth M.  We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped in Bataan by the Japanese.
• Novogratz, Jacqueline. The blue sweater: bridging the gap between rich and poor in an interconnected world.
• Obama, Barack.  Dreams from my father: a story of race and inheritance.
• Reisen, Harriet. Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women.
• Rice, Condoleezza.  Extraordinary, ordinary people: A memoir of family.
• Shah, Saira.  The Storyteller’s daughter.
• Shields, Charles J.  Mockingbird: A portrait of Harper Lee.
• Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
• Smardz Frost, Karolyn.  I've got a home in glory land: a lost tale of the underground railroad.
• Toobin, Jeffrey.  The nine : inside the secret world of the Supreme Court.
• Walls, Jeannette.  The glass castle: a memoir.
• Winchester, Simon.  The professor and the madman: a tale of murder, insanity, and the making of the Oxford English dictionary.