REALLY SERIOUS BOOK CLUB The Really Serious Book Club meets on the third Wednesday of the month to discuss ideas presented in books of social, cultural, philosophic and/or historic importance.In past months, selections have included Sapiens, Hillbilly Elegy, The Gene, Who Lost Russia?, Skunkworks, Rigor Mortis, Everybody Lies, Evicted, Leonardo da … [Read more...]

The Really Serious Book Club met at the home of Mary Crowl to discuss various books on the Rothschild family. Its fortunes were founded in 1760 by Mayer Rothchild who sent his five sons to London, Paris, Frankfort, Vienna and Naples to establish financial connections. The family was the subject of many anti-Semitic conspiracy theories culminating … [Read more...]

The Really Serious Book Club met at the home of Norton Schwartz to discuss The Food Explorer, a book about the globe-trotting Botanist, Daniel Stone, who early in the 19th Century brought fruits and vegetables from foreign lands that transformed what America ate. He introduced avocados, nectarines, lemons, resistant varieties of wheat and potatoes, … [Read more...]

The Really Serious Book Club met at the home of Norton Schwartz to discuss The Truth About Animals—Stoned Sloths, Lovelorn Hippos and other Tales of the Wild Side of Wild life by Lucy Cooke. Beavers, sloths, bats, eels, vultures and frogs were a few of the animals whose innermost secrets and hidden lives the author revealed. She sang the praises of … [Read more...]

The Really Serious Book Club gathered for their August meeting at the home of Mary Crowl who led the discussion on State of Resistance by Manuel Pastor. The book revealed California as a muddled and financially troubled state for many governors and administrations, until many small movement groups coalesced to give strength to Governor Brown’s … [Read more...]

In July, Mary Crowl hosted the Really Serious Book Club and Priscilla Agnew led the discussion of Leonardo de Vinci by Walter Isaacson. The artist’s life and times, his great paintings, military studies, machine inventions, human body analysis and drawings, water flow, metals analysis and much more flowed from this Renaissance genius. His … [Read more...]

The Really Serious Book Club, also known by friends as the Oreo Cookie Book Club, met at the home of Norton Schwartz to discuss the thrust and implications of the award winning Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond. Issues of tax policy, homelessness, housing subsidies, cultural norms and income distribution were all … [Read more...]

Mary Crowl hosted the May meeting of the Really Serious Book Club where the members reviewed Everybody Lies—Big Data and How It Can Tell Us Who We Really Are, written by Seth Davidowitz. People may lie when they respond to surveys, but there are ways to analyze attitudes and beliefs through analysis of social media like Facebook and repeated … [Read more...]

Lakshman Sehgal hosted the meeting and led the discussion on Rigor Mortis, a book critical of many published medical research papers because of lack of proper peer review, statistical errors, bad research design, mishandled data, etc. The author, Richard Harris, partly blames competition to publish early and often. In discussion it was a consensus … [Read more...]

Last month the Really Serious Book Club discussed Skunk Works by Rich and Janos, the inside story of the Lockeed Aircraft super-secret division that developed the “Blackbird,” the U-2, Stealth aircraft other engineering and aircraft marvels. Their struggles with the CIA, Washington and Lockeed management are highlighted, as well as technical and … [Read more...]