LWV-RMA Book Club

The LWV-RMA book club reads both fiction and non-fiction books relating to advocacy positions our League has adopted. Anyone who has read the book is welcome to participate in the discussion.

Meetings are the third Thursday of every other month from 4:30 to 5:30pm. Meetings are held on zoom until further notice.

For more information, call the League at 585.262.3730 or email to bookclub@LWV-RMA.org

Books for 2024-2025

Datediscussion leaderTitle
9/19/24Elaine SchmidtEnough by Cassidy Hutchinson 
11/21/24 Judy WadsworthThe Confidante: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Helped Win WWII and Shape Modern America by Christopher Gorham
1/16/25Karen FunkBraiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
3/20/25Georgia DeGregorioGallop Toward the Sun: Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison's Struggle for the Destiny of a Nation
5/15/25Patricia PartridgeAmerican Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis by Adam HochschildThe Art of Power by Nancy Pelosi
7/17/25Carolyn O'NeilDemocracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America by Heather Cox RichardsonDistorting Democracy: The Forgotten History of the Electoral Collegeand Why It Matters Today by Carolyn Renée Dupont 


Books for 2023-2024

Datediscussion leaderTitle
9/21/23Elaine SchmidtThe Second Amendment: A Biography by Michael WaldmanThe Second Amendment: a Biography by Michael Waldman
11/16/23 Mary Hussong-KallenThe Death of Experise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters, by Tom NicholsThe Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters, by Tom Nichols
1/18/23Karen FunkSubversive Southerner: Anne Braden and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Cold War SouthSubversive Southerner: Anne Braden and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Cold War South
3/21/23Barbara GroshPoverty by America, by Matthew DesmondPoverty by America, by Matthew Desmond
5/16/23Judy WadsworthAmerican Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis by Adam HochschildAmerican Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis by Adam Hochschild
7/18/23Deb GordonDemocracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America by Heather Cox RichardsonDemocracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America by Heather Cox Richardson


Books for 2022-2023

Datediscussion leaderTitle
9/15/22Judy WadsworthHurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid by Thor HansonHurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid
10/20/22 Karen FunkOur Time is Now by Stacey AbramsStacy Abrams: Our Time is Now
11/17/22Alicia AlvoradoPrisoners of Geography: Ten maps that explain everything about the world by Tim MarshallPrisoners of Geography
12/15/22Mary Hussong-KallenFulfillment: Winning & Losing in 1-Click America by Alec MacGillisFulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America
1/19/23Judy WeinsteinThe Night Watchman by Louise ErdrichThe Night Watchman
2/16/23Chris PryorHow the Word is Passed by Clint SmithHow the Word is Passed
3/16/23Deb GordonSensational: The Hidden History of America’s ‘Girl Stunt Reporters’ by Kim ToddSensational: the Hidden History of America's "Girl Stunt Reporters"
4/20/23Elaine SchmidtAllow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution by Elie MystalAllow Me to Report
5/18/23Georgia DeGregorioThe Avoidable War by Kenneth RuddThe Avoidable War
6/15/23Karen FunkThe Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels by John Meacham.The Soul of America: the Battle for Our Better Angels

Books for 2021-2022

Sept. 23, 2021
Deb Gordon

Caste by Isobel Wilkerson

October 28, 2021
Elaine Schmidt

Strike the Hammer by Laura Warren Hill

November 18, 2021
Georgia DiGregorio

First Principles by Thomas E. Ricks

December 16, 2021
Judy Wadsworth

However Long the Night by Aimee Molloy

January 20, 2022
Barbara Grosh

The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee

February 17. 2022

How the South Won the Civil War by Heather Cox
Conversation leader: Mary Hussong-Kallen

March 17, 2022

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
Conversation leader: Karen Funke

April 21, 2022

The 1619 Project by Nicole Hannah Jones (Part 1)
Conversation leader: Deb Gordon

May 19, 2022

The 1619 Project by Nicole Hannah Jones (Part 2)
Conversation leader: Chris Pryor

June 16, 2022

The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale
Conversation leader: Diane Stengel

Archive of past years' reads

Books Read 2020-2021

Thursday,
Sept. 17, 2020

Jane Romal

Stamped: racism, antiracism, and you (2020) by Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi

Thursday,
Oct. 15, 2020

Chris Pryor

How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

Thursday,
Nov. 19, 2020

Elaine Schmidt

The Warmth of Other Suns, The Epic story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson (640 pages)

Thursday,
Dec. 17, 2020

Barbara Grosh

The untold story of women of color in the League of Women Voters by Carolyn Jefferson-Jenkins

Thursday,
Jan. 21, 2021

Georgia DeGregorio

Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom by Keishan N. Blain

Thursday,
Feb. 18, 2021

Elaine Schmidt

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer

Thursday,
March 18, 2021

Georgia DeGregorio

Begin Again by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

Thursday,
April 15, 2021

Jane Romal

How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

Thursday,
May 20, 2021

Judy Wadsworth

Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement by John Lewis

Thursday,
June 17, 2021

Judy Weinstein

Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Books Read 2019-2020

Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America by Nancy MacLean

The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote by Elaine Weiss

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

Educated: a memoir by Tara Westover

The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan

Books Read 2018-2019

Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools by Diane Ravitch

The Hellfire Club by Jake Tapper

How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob Riis

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine Albright

Sex Wars: A Novel of Gilded Age New York by Marge Piercy

Books Read 2017-2018

Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild

The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water by Charles Fishman

The Generals by Thomas Ricks

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice by Patricia Bell-Scott

Books Read 2016-2017

My Life on the Road by Gloria Steinem

The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014 by Carlotta Gall

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress by William Lee Miller

Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer

The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt

Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck by Adam Cohen

Books read 2015-2016

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore

The Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos

Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire

Between the World and Me by Ta Nehisi Coates

Books read 2014-2015

A Mercy by Toni Morrison

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston

Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters by Diane Jacobs

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander and Cornell West

Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist by Bill McKibben

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Books read 2013-2014

Girls like us : fighting for a world where girls are not for sale, an activist finds her calling and heals herself by Rachel Lloyd

Miracle at Philadelphia; the story of the Constitutional Convention, May to September, 1787 by Catherine Drinker Bowen

The Righteous Mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion by Jonathan Haidt

Negro President: Jefferson and the slave power by Gary Wills

Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland boys, and the dawn of a new America by Gilbert King

Darwin and the Beagle by Alan Moorehead

The Roberts Court by Marcia Coyle

Books Read Spring 2013

Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It by Lawrence Lessig

On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson by William Souder

The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones