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 December 15, recommended by Marilyn McFadden, will be The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West by Martha Sandweiss.   

Description from the publisher:

In 1868, celebrated Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner traveled to Fort Laramie to document the federal government’s treaty negotiations with the Lakota and other tribes of the northern plains. Gardner, known for his iconic portrait of Abraham Lincoln and his visceral pictures of the Confederate dead at Antietam, posed six federal peace commissioners with a young Native girl wrapped in a blanket. The hand-labeled prints carefully name each of the men, but the girl is never identified. As The Girl in the Middle goes in search of her, it draws readers into the entangled lives of the photographer and his subjects.

Martha A. Sandweiss paints a riveting portrait of the turbulent age of Reconstruction and westward expansion. She follows Gardner from his birthplace in Scotland to the American frontier, as his dreams of a utopian future across the Atlantic fall to pieces. She recounts the lives of William S. Harney, a slave-owning Union general who earned the Lakota name “Woman Killer,” and Samuel F. Tappan, an abolitionist who led the investigation into the Sand Creek massacre. And she identifies Sophie Mousseau, the girl in Gardner’s photograph, whose life swerved in unexpected directions as American settlers pushed into Indian Country and the federal government confined Native peoples to reservations.

Spinning a spellbinding historical tale from a single enigmatic image, The Girl in the Middle reveals how the American nation grappled with what kind of country it would be as it expanded westward in the aftermath of the Civil War.

The author in conversation with Esther Schor, presented by Princeton Public Library: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9E4Idg0BrA&t=111s 

Upcoming titles:

Jan 19   Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI by Yuval Noah Harari 

Feb 16  How to Hide An Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr 

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!