DC/SLA non-Fiction Bookclub

Participate in our DC/SLA Professional Book Club!

Created in 2002, the Chapter’s Professional Book Club meets quarterly to discuss current, thought-provoking books of wide interest to our professional community. The goal of our discussions is to highlight each book’s unique points and useful takeaways through a lively exchange of ideas. 

Prior to each meeting, participants nominate recent, compelling books, and vote for the title they would like to discuss at the next gathering. See below for a list of all books read since the start of the group. Since 2005, the group has met at diverse Metro-accessible restaurants recommended by participants.

Do you know of a great book we should discuss at an upcoming meeting? Have a question or comment? Please send your suggestions and questions to: Jessica Fomalont.

Tues., April 19, 2022 

7:00 PM to 9:00 pm

Past Book Selections:

• Tuesday, January 11, 20221, Reading Behind Bars: a True Story of Literature, Law, and Life as a Prison Librarian by Jill Grunenwald
• Wednesday, September 22, 2021, The Google Archipelago: the Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom by Michael Rectenwald
• Tuesday, February 23, 2021, My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsberg
• Tuesday, November 17, 2020, The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray
• Tuesday, August 11, 2020, Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor by Virginia Eubank
• Tuesday, October 29, 2019, Life 3.0 by Max Tergen
• Tuesday, January 21, 2020, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism by Safiya Noble
• Tuesday, October 29, 2019, Leadership In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin
• Tuesday, July 23, 2019, The Library Book by Susan Orlean
• Tuesday, October 16, 2018, Amusing ourselves to death: public discourse in the age of show business by Neil Postman
• Tuesday, July 24, 2018, When the Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel Pink
• Tuesday, April 24, 2018, Option B : facing adversity, building resilience, and finding joy by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant
• Tuesday, January 16, 2018, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
• Tuesday, October 24, 2017, The card catalog : books, cards, and literary treasures / the Library of Congress ; foreword by Carla Hayden ; [text written by Peter Devereaux]
• Tuesday, July 25, 2017, Hidden figures : the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race by Margot Lee Shetterly
• April 25, 2017, Originals : How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant
• January 24, 2017, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• October 18, 2016, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• July 26, 2016, Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian by Avi Steinbert
• April 26, 2016, The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our Brains by Nicholas Carr; joint meeting with AGLISS; event recap and twitter discussion: #readCUA.
• February 2, 2016, BiblioTech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google by John Palfrey.
• October 28, 2015, The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson
• July 29, 2015, Whoever tells the best story wins: how to use your own stories to communicate with power and impact by Annette Simmons.
• April 29, 2015, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell
• January 14, 2015, Buying and Selling Information, A Guide for Information Professionals and Salespeople to Build Mutual Success by Michael L. Gruenberg
• October 15, 2014, As a Peace-Loving Global Citizen by Sun Myung Moon
• July 22, 2014, The World’s Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette’s, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family by Josh Hanagarne
• April 23, 2014 – Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change, Second Edition,
  by Joseph Grenny (Author) , Kerry Patterson (Author) & 3 more
• January 28, 2014 – Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
• October 29, 2013 – Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson or the article “The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs”(Harvard Business Review, 2012 Apr;90(4):92-100, 102, 146.)
• July 30, 2013 – Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
• April 23, 2013 – Quiet:  The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
• January 22, 2013 – The Googlization of Everything (and why we should worry) by Siva Vaidhyanatha.
• October 16, 2012 – The Embedded Librarian: Innovative Strategies for Taking Knowledge Where It’s Needed by David Shumaker
• July 25, 2012 – Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren’t the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room by David Weinberger
• April 24, 2012 – The Master Switch: The Rose and Fall of Information Empires by Tim Wu
• October 27, 2011 – A Reader on Reading by Alberto Manguel
• July 28, 2011 – Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Stephen Johnson
• April 26, 2011 – Hamlet’s Blackberry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age by William Powers
• January 27, 2011 – Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky
• October 28, 2010 – The Case for Books by Robert Darnton
• July 28, 2010 – This Book is Overdue by Marilyn Johnson
• April 28, 2010 – Why We Make Mistakes by Joseph Hallinan
• January 26, 2010 – Living in More Than One World by Bruce Rosenstein
• October 13, 2009 – The Library At Night By Alberto Manguel
• July 29, 2009 – A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future By Daniel Pink
• April 22, 2009 – Outliers: The Story of Success By Malcom Gladwell
• Jan. 27, 2009 – The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• Oct. 29, 2008 – The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet by Daniel Solove
• July 15, 2008 – Tagging: People-powered Metadata for the Social Web by Gene Smith
• April 7, 2008 – Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
• Jan. 16, 2008 – Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
• Oct. 1, 2007 – Library 2.0 and Beyond edited by Nancy Courtney
• July 11, 2007 – Wikinomics : How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams
• April 23, 2007 – Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
• January 11, 2007 – Thinking for a Living by Thomas Davenport
• October 16, 2006 – The Search by John Bagatelle
• July 19, 2006 – Reading Lolita in Tehran : A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
• April 20, 2006 – Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
• January 12, 2006 – The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Friedman
• October 6, 2005 – Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan
• May 19, 2005 – Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson
• November 10, 2004 – The New Organizational Wealth: Managing and Measuring Knowledge-Based Assets by Karl Sveiby
• September 2004 – Good Business: Leadership, Flow & the Making of Meaning by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• July, 2004 – Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman
• May 13, 2004 – Free Culture by Lawrence Lessing
• March 25, 2004 – Why Don’t You Want What I Want? How to Win Support for Your Ideas without Hard Sell, Manipulation, or Power Plays by Rick Mauer
• January 22, 2004 – When Generations Collide by Lynne C. Lancaster and David Stillman
• November 13, 2003 – Nothing to Fear: Lessons in Leadership from FDR by Alan Axelrod
• October 2, 2003 – Alexander the Great’s Art of Strategy by Partha Bose
• May 8, 2003 – Web of Deception: Misinformation on the Internet by Anne Mintz and Steve Forbes
• March, 2003 – Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time by Susan Scott
• January 16, 2003 – Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t by James C. Collins
• November 7, 2002 – The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
• September 19, 2002 – The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker’s Essential Writing on Management by Peter Drucker