Nonfiction Book Club

This group is for nonfiction readers who enjoy thought-provoking discussions.  We vote on a book every month across a wide variety of genres from among recommendations from our group. For more information or to get monthly emails with details about upcoming meetings, contact DianeCosner@gmail.com or 352-259-9168

The book chosen for August 18 will be Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.

Description from the book jacket:

To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are ever finished at all. The crisis that’s clicking into focus now has been building for decades—because we haven’t been building enough.

Abundance explains that our problems today are not the results of yesteryear’s villains. Rather, one generation’s solutions have become the next gener­ation’s problems. Rules and regulations designed to solve the problems of the 1970s often prevent urban-density and green-energy projects that would help solve the problems of the 2020s. Laws meant to ensure that government considers the consequences of its actions have made it too difficult for government to act consequentially. In the last few decades, our capacity to see problems has sharpened while our ability to solve them has diminished.

Progress requires facing up to the institutions in life that are not working as they need to. It means, for liberals, recognizing when the government is failing. It means, for conservatives, recognizing when the government is needed. In a book exploring how we can move from a liberalism that not only protects and pre­serves but also builds, Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and propose a path toward a politics of abundance. At a time when movements of scarcity are gaining power in country after country, this is an answer that meets the challenges of the moment while grappling honestly with the fury so many rightfully feel.

The authors discuss their book with Michael Pollan for the Long Now Foundation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9wga7S3nAw&t=629s

Upcoming titles:

Sept 15 Dumbing Us Down - 25th Anniversary Edition: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto

Oct 20  The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt

Nov 17 When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Dec 15 The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West by Martha Sandweiss

Have you read a great nonfiction book recently that would be a good choice to discuss among friends who will take the time and consideration to read it thoroughly?  Hope to see you at the next meeting!