BBC - The Story So Far....

2010

6/2010 Then We Came to the End, Joshua Ferris
7/2010 The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi
8/2010 The Road, Cormac McCarthy
9/2010 Gentlemen of the Road, Michael Chabon
10/2010 Too Big to Fail, Andrew Sorkin
11/2012 [Moved to December]
12/2010 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon

2011

1/2011 COMICS MONTH: 
“Required": 
Persepolis, Marjane Sartapi
Sandman vol. 1, Neil Gaiman
"Optional":
Watchmen, Alan Moore
The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller 
[Also: “Hi everyone.  I'm new to the group.” David C. Cripe] 
2/2011 [Moved to March]
3/2011 The Imperfectionists, Tom Rachman
4/2011 Hunting Eichmann, Neal Bascomb
5/2011 Schrödinger's Ball, Adam Felber
6/2011 The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, Deborah Blum 
Also: first Boy Book Club movie night — X-Men: First Class
7/2011 A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin
8/2011 [postponed]
9/2011 Homicide:  Life on the Streets, David Simon
10/2011  Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter, Steven Johnson
11/2011 A Spot of Bother, Mark Haddon
12/2011 A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, Eric Newby

2012

1/2012 [Regular meeting postponed. Bonus Song of Ice and Fire meeting held.]
2/2012 Wonderboys, Michael Chabon
[Also: LOTR trivial pursuit night]
3/2012 Life, Keith Richards
4/2012 Ready Player One, Earnest Cline
5/2012 My Year of Flops, Nathan Rabin
6/2012 A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
7/2012 The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
8/2012 Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brian
9/2012 A Few Seconds of Panic, Stefan Fatsis
10/2012 Paris to the Moon, Adam Gopnik
11/2012 Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
12/2012 The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester

2013

1/2013 The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell
2/2013 The Sisters Brothers, Patrick DeWitt
3/2013 COMICS MONTH: 
The Manhattan Projects (vol. 1), Johnathan Hickman
Superman: Red Son, Mark Millar
Pride of Baghdad, Brian Vaughan
Habibi, Craig Thompson
4/2013  Perdido Street Station, China Mieville  
[Also: Beer Night at Cheeky Monk]
5/2013   King Leopold's Ghost, Adam Hochschild
6/2013 The Leftovers,Tom Perrotta
7/2013   Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

8/2013     What if?  by Robert Cowley

9/2013     History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage
10/2013   The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry
11/2013   American Gods by Neil Gaiman
12/2013   Stiff by Mary Roach

2014

             [Beginning of BBC Game Night spinoff]

1/2014   Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
2/2014   Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
3/2014   Four Fish by Paul Greenberg
4/2014   A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers
5/2014   The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross
6/2014   In the Shape of the Boar by Lawrence Norfolk
7/2014   Reamde by Neal Stephenson
8/2014   Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
9/2014   The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman 
10/2014  The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
11/2014  COMICS MONTH  (From Hell, Saga, The Graveyard Book)
12/2014  The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

2015

1/2015  Constellation Games by Leonard Richardson
2/2015  Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel
3/2015  Going Clear:  Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright
4/2015  (Off for BBC movie night)
5/2015  The Circle by Dave Eggars
6/2015  Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
7/2015  Empire of the Summer Moon by S. C. Gwynne
8/2015  Neuromancer by William Gibson
9/2015  A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller
10/2015  Echopraxia by Peter Watts
11/2015  Guns, Germs and Steel by Jered Diamond
12/2015  The Forgers by Bradford Marrow

2016

1/2016  COMICS MONTH

2/2016  Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel by Susanna Clarke

3/2016  Flash Boys by Michael Lewis

4/2016  HORRIBLE MOVIE NIGHT:  "The Star Wars Holiday Special" with RiffTrax.

5/2016  Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon

6/2016  Nemesis by Philip Roth

7/2016  The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore, with Bonus Reading: Wonder Woman:Earth One by Grant Morrison

8/2016  To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris

9/2016  Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

10/2016  No Meeting

11/2016  Black Chalk by Christopher Yates

12/2016 The Revolutions by Felix Gilman

2017

1/2017 Lost Light, by Michael Connelly. 

2/2017 Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  

3/2017 The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker. 

4/2017 The Night Sessions, by Ken MacLeod.  

5/2017 (Not So) Bad Movie Night: "The Matrix"
6/2017 Bone Clocks, by David Mitchell..

7/2017 The Sellout, by Paul Beatty. 

8/2017  Off month

9/2017  The Rook, by Daniel O’Malley. 

10/2017 Don't Get Too Comfortable, by David Rakoff. 

11/2017 The Swerve, by Stephen Greenblatt. 

12/2017  Bad Movie Night:  "Highlander"

2018

1/2018 The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen.

2/2018  Dead Wake:  The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, by Erik Larson. 

3/2018  People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks.
4/2018  Vacationland:  True Stories from Painful Beaches, by John Hodgman
5/2018  Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty
6/2018  Sick Puppy, by Carl Hiassen
7/2018  Longform Literature Month
8/2018  The Waterknife, by Paolo Bacigalupi
9/2018  Space Opera, by Catherynne Valente
10/2018  Death and Life of the Great Lakes, by Dan Egan
11/2018  Borderline, by Mishell Baker
12/2019  Podcast Month

2019

1/2019  My Favorite Thing is Monsters, by Emil Ferris
2/2019  Uproot: Travels in 21st Century Music and Digital Culture, by Jace Clayton
3/2019  Red Notice, by Bill Browder
4/2019  This Could Hurt, by Jillian Medoff
5/2019  The Power, by Naomi Alderman
6/2019  The North Water, by Ian McGuire
7/2019  The Saints of Rattlesnake Mountain, by Dan Waters

2019

August

The Big Con:  The Story of a Confidence Man, by David Maurer (336 pages)

First published in 1940, this is considered a seminal work in criminology and was the source material for the movie “The Sting.”  Maurer was a linguist who spent years gaining the trust of con artists and detailing their culture and language, as well as their schemes.  Nominated by Jason.

September

Manhattan Beach, by Jennifer Egan (448 pages)

Author of A Visit from the Goon Squad, still #1 for me as best BBC book ever, the story of a young girl in the depression whose father disappears under mysterious circumstances.  Grown up and a working as a  diving engineer during WWII while men are off to war, she encounters a business partner of her father’s and begins to learn the truth of his life and disappearance.  Nominated by me.  

October

E: The Story of a Number, by Eli Maor. (227 pages)

 From Seth:  “This book describes the use and history of the mathematical constant e (an irrational number), which is the base of natural logarithms. It’s supposed to be a great history, tied closely with the important developments in the sciences, with only fairly modest use of math.”  I think if there is a group of men who should be discussing abstract math, it’s the BBC.  Bring it.

November

The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin. (512 pages)

Tim and I have both read this one and loved it.  I think it is hands down the best Sci Fi book I have read in years with female characters that put most other sci fi books to shame.  However, major Trilogy Alert here, and I would argue that this isn’t a trilogy at all, but one very long book.  All three of the books in the series deservedly won the Hugo award. Set in the far future on a planet with massive geologic instability that causes intermittent nuclear winter-like “fifth seasons,” telling the tale from the point of view of three women with magic-like powers to control stone, who’s stories intertwine throughout the book.  As these “orogenes” are both powerful and highly discriminated against, Jemisin uses their plight as an allegory for different kinds of prejudice in nice, subtle ways.  I firmly believe that all of the sci fi minded BBC members should read this.  I leave it up to the voters if you want to read the first 1/3 of the story for BBC.  Nominated by Tim.

December

Bad Blood, by John Carreyrou (320 Pages)

Theranos was the fast rising biomedical company run by a “female version of Steve Jobs” that had the support of a who’s who of influencers and powerful people, until it was all brought down by a series of articles in the Wall Street Journal by Carreyrou, who exposed it all as a fraud.  There are currently lots of different ways to get your Theranos hit (podcasts, documentaries, articles) but this is the gold standard.  Nominated by Mike B.

2020

January

Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer (208 pages)

From Seth: “I think Mike has read this, and a few of us have seen the film. I found the film more haunting than great, but several friends have strongly recommended the book to me. The rough summary is that there’s this mysterious Area X on Earth (presumably of extraterrestrial origins) filled with weird mutations, and several teams of soldiers and researchers have tried to investigate it, only to wind up dead one way or another. The story tracks a team of four women, each with dark secrets, trying to figure out just what the anomaly is.” 

February

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, by Ta Nehisi Coates (400 pages)

Let’s keep the political depression going:  A collection of essays from Mr. Coates reflecting on each of Obama’s eight years in office in the context of what came afterwards, as well as how the Obama years reflected on the continued racism in the US.  Not realizing that we have been down this road before with Between the World and Me, which was before his time with the BBC, Greg says:  “Should make for interesting conversation amongst a group of middle-aged white guys.”

March

The City and The City, by China Mieville (336 pages)

I’ve read this one too, and it is fascinating.  A detective story set in two vaguely eastern European cities that overlap each other in the same physical space, but not interacting unless you cross the gateway between cities.  Two detectives, one from each city, investigate a murder of a women found dead in the wrong city.  Mieville is a sci fi fantasy writer (Perdido Street Station) but what sets this novel apart from his other work is the separation of the cities is more cultural than supernatural. Nominated by Jason.

April

The Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James Brown (227 pages)

I think every time I mention to someone that I run a book club, they tell me we should read The Boys in the Boat.  And no surprise as it is the Amazon # 1 best seller in “canoeing,” and it is being made into a PBS special.  It is the story of a bunch of average Americans who went on to beat the German rowing team at the 1936 Olympics, basically like Jesse Owens, except white and afloat.  Nominated by Mike E, to whom I extend an apology for this blurb.

May

Long Form Literature Month!  Content to be determined.

June

The Ventriloquists, by E.Z. Ramzipoor. (544 pages)

Seth also puts in a plug for a friend:  “A fictionalized account of true events involving a resistance movement in Nazi-occupied Belgium that took over a propaganda newspaper to mock the Nazis and Soviets. This book doesn’t come out until August, but early press is pretty positive. Disclosure: I know the author and am very curious to read this, which is her first novel.”  Another opportunity for a potentially fascinating/awkward BBC meet-the-author night.

July

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, by Steve Brusatte (416 pages)

Who likes dinosaurs?  I sure do, because I am a child.  This is an apparently very readable trip through the latest thinking on the history and biology of dinosaurs, starting with their humble beginnings in the Triassic period to becoming the dominant life on earth until (spoiler alert) their sudden extinction.  On multiple best book lists, with lots of nice pictures of dinosaurs.  Nominated by 10-year-old Andrew B.

August

The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead (300 pages)

Won the Pulitzer and the National Book Award, and tells the tale of Cora, a runaway slave in a version of America where the Underground Railroad is an actual railroad.  Cora’s journey is compared in some reviews to Gulliver’s Travels, as each place she visits is a world unto itself, tying together the history of blacks in America from the days of slavery to modern times.  Sample quote from a review: “Imagine a runaway slave novel written with Joseph Heller's deadpan voice leasing both Frederick Douglass' grim realities and H.P. Lovecraft's rococo fantasies…and that's when you begin to understand how startlingly original this book is.”  Nominated by Mike E.

September

How to Change your Mind, by Michael Pollan (480 pages)

Well, now that “magic mushrooms” are Denver law enforcement’s lowest priority, maybe it is time to get up on the topic.  Pollan, of Omnivore’s Dilemma fame, decides to study mind altering substances both through research into their history and current use, and then elects to “explore the landscape of the mind in the first person as well as the third,” which I believe means he used a bunch of drugs. Nominated by Mark.    

October

Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders (349 pages)

Lots of awards for this one, including the Man Booker Prize.  Set in 1862 in the middle of the Civil War, after the death of Lincoln’s son, with Lincoln in the White House talking to the ghosts of those he feels responsible for.  This somewhat experimental novel began as a play and some of it is still in that format.  Reviews are gushing.  Nominated by Jason.

November

Theory of Bastards, by Audrey Schulman (416 pages)

Set in the near future, a scientist and cancer survivor begins work with bonobos to prove her subversive scientific hypothesis, “The Theory of Bastards,” with the help of her mysterious research partner.  As they work, the lines between scientist and subject begin to blur.  Winner of the Phillip K Dick Award for best Sci Fi novel of 2019.

December

Warlight, by Michael Ondaatje (304 pages)

By the author of The English Patient.  During the Blitz, two British teens are left by the parents in the care of a mysterious family friend known as “the Moth,” after the parents leave for Singapore.  But the Moth is not who he seems to be, which is surprising given his not-at-all suspicious nickname.  You guys like your award winners, and this is another.   Nominated by Mark.

2021

January

We are Legion (We are Bob), by Dennis Taylor (308 pages)

Apparently, working though their mortality via technology is a thing for the techno-set these days, so here we go again:  A rich software exec (sigh) sells his company and is looking forward to a lovely retirement as part of the 1% when he gets inconveniently killed crossing the street, only to find himself uploaded into a computer in the far future as an AI for an interstellar probe sent to find new habitable planets.  He can choose to be shut off or head into space, but danger lurks in the form of competing countries who want to send their own probes, as well as alien life out there who are not happy about an emerging humanity.  Nominated by Greg.