Book selection for April 2022

[Sheri]

Hi all, it's time to start picking the book for the next quarter. Standard rules apply.

Please make sure you give a sentence or two why you think we should read it together, not just a list of books you're planning on reading.

If a book is recommended that you also want to recommend, you can mention it again to add support. If there's a bunch of titles, I'll just pick the ones that seem to have the most interest in the poll, if there's just a few i"ll pull them all.

This is a new selection round, so if you want to suggest a book you've suggested before, put it here again to be considered, I won't be going back to past suggestion posts.

Happy reading everyone!

[Shel]

I propose something nonfiction for a change of pace! This one looks like a fun and fascinating read:
Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language

[Susan]

I like Shel's proposal. Since it's (the end of) Women's History Month, I suggest The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear. This gave me so many feels and emotions, ending with "how have I never heard of her before"?

This book is by Kate Moore, the same author who wrote The Radium Girls.

ETA: I realized I didn't give any context about what the book is about. Here's a good synopsis from someone's review on the book on GR:
This is the story of Elizabeth Packard and her garbage husband who was intimidated by her intelligence so claimed she was insane and had her committed to an asylum. Only for her to discover that the asylum is just full of perfectly sane women who’s husbands didn’t want to deal with them anymore. The torture and abuse these women went through was horrendous and the amount of injustices and blatant lies they were told is unfortunately not as appalling as it should be. This book embodies the whole “nasty woman” mentality and it’s brutal and incredibly empowering seeing how many times Packard was shoved down only to pick herself back up and keep trying. And yet have you ever heard of her? Probably not.

[Kassia]

I don’t read as much nonfiction but one author in that genre that I love is Erik Larson. I’m currently reading Isaac’s Storm which talks about the history of meteorology and other related things leading up to the catastrophic hurricane that hit Galveston, TX in 1900. His writing uses letters, diaries, and telegrams as well as newspaper articles and in depth research to bring his stories to life. This is his third book I’ve read and it is just as good as the other two!

[Shel]

I LOVE Erik Larson's books! Isaac's Storm was excellent.

[nimrodiel]

It might be a bit skewed towards gamers, but Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation by Blake J. Harris is an older book but really good