About us
We've been reading nonfiction together since 2014 — we started as an in-person group in Pittsburgh, then went virtual in 2020, and we're about 180 books along at this point.
Our taste runs wide: how fungi shape the world, why traffic behaves the way it does, what the Americas looked like in 1491, why introverts get overlooked, how precision engineering made modern life possible. Mostly popular science and social science, with regular detours into history, design, language, and the occasional funny memoir. If it's curious and well written, it's fair game.
We meet on Zoom roughly once a month, usually a Tuesday at 7pm Eastern, so you can join from anywhere. Read the whole book, read half of it, or read none of it and come for the conversation — nobody checks. Discussions tend to wander into tangents and personal stories, which is honestly the best part.
We pick the next book together at the end of each meeting, so showing up is how you get a vote. Suggestions are welcome any time and go onto the list — here's what we've read and what's up next.
Upcoming events
1
The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean
·OnlineOnline# The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean
### by Susan Casey
Please read the book (all or part) if you can, or if you are short of time you can listen to the audiobook preview or watch an author interview using the links below.
From Goodreads:
From bestselling author Susan Casey, an awe-inspiring portrait of the mysterious world beneath the waves, and the men and women who seek to uncover its secrets
For all of human history, the deep ocean has been a source of wonder and terror, an unknown realm that evoked a singular, compelling question: What’s down there? Unable to answer this for centuries, people believed the deep was a sinister realm of fiendish creatures and deadly peril. But now, cutting-edge technologies allow scientists and explorers to dive miles beneath the surface, and we are beginning to understand this strange and exotic underworld: A place of soaring mountains, smoldering volcanoes, and valleys 7,000 feet deeper than Everest is high, where tectonic plates collide and separate, and extraordinary life forms operate under different rules. Far from a dark void, the deep is a vibrant realm that’s home to pink gelatinous predators and shimmering creatures a hundred feet long and ancient animals with glass skeletons and sharks that live for half a millennium—among countless other marvels.
Susan Casey is our premiere chronicler of the aquatic world. For The Underworld she traversed the globe, joining scientists and explorers on dives to the deepest places on the planet, interviewing the marine geologists, marine biologists, and oceanographers who are searching for knowledge in this vast unseen realm. She takes us on a fascinating journey through the history of deep-sea exploration, from the myths and legends of the ancient world to storied shipwrecks we can now reach on the bottom, to the first intrepid bathysphere pilots, to the scientists who are just beginning to understand the mind-blowing complexity and ecological importance of the quadrillions of creatures who live in realms long thought to be devoid of life.
Throughout this journey, she learned how vital the deep is to the future of the planet, and how urgent it is that we understand it in a time of increasing threats from climate change, industrial fishing, pollution, and the mining companies that are also exploring its depths. The Underworld is Susan Casey’s most beautiful and thrilling book yet, a gorgeous evocation of the natural world and a powerful call to arms.
Links:
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/63241875-the-underworld
Carnegie Library: https://acl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S209C4044455
Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-underworld-journeys-to-the-depths-of-the-ocean-susan-casey/90f79df3309c479cRelated:
YouTube:
Audiobook Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_dAw9tTPXw
Author Interview: https://youtu.be/MseQue5GOAE1 attendee
Past events
105
