BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Meetup//Meetup Calendar 1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH NAME:Twin Cities Non Fiction Book Club X-WR-CALNAME:Twin Cities Non Fiction Book Club BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Chicago TZURL:http://tzurl.org/zoneinfo-outlook/America/Chicago X-LIC-LOCATION:America/Chicago BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0600 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:CDT DTSTART:19700308T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=2SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0600 TZNAME:CST DTSTART:19701101T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=11;BYDAY=1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:event_316047203@meetup.com SEQUENCE:1 DTSTAMP:20261030T073626Z DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20261108T101500 DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20261108T121500 SUMMARY:November Book - The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich ( 2017) 357pg DESCRIPTION:Twin Cities Non Fiction Book Club\n**From the publisher**\n"In The Unwomanly Face of War\, Alexievich chronicles the experiences of the Soviet women who fought on the front lines\, on the home front\, and in th e occupied territories. These women—more than a million in total—were nurses and doctors\, pilots\, tank drivers\, machine-gunners\, and snipers . They battled alongside men\, and yet\, after the victory\, their efforts and sacrifices were forgotten.\n\nAlexievich traveled thousands of miles and visited more than a hundred towns to record these women’s stories. T ogether\, this symphony of voices reveals a different aspect of the war— the everyday details of life in combat left out of the official histories. \n\nTranslated by the renowned Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky\, Th e Unwomanly Face of War is a powerful and poignant account of the central conflict of the twentieth century\, a kaleidoscopic portrait of the human side of war."\n\n*Please RSVP if you intend to come and change it if somet hing comes up.\n\n* Also please bring book suggestions (with library avail ability and page length) so that we can build a list for future meetups.\n \nBarnes & Noble opens at 10am on Sunday.\n\nPlan to order something to dr ink from the Cafe\, then find us in the cafe seating area. I'll bring a si gn for the table with the group name. URL;VALUE=URI:https://www.meetup.com/twin-cities-non-fiction-book-club/eve nts/316047203/ STATUS:CONFIRMED CREATED:20260809T171948Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260809T171948Z CLASS:PUBLIC END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:event_316047256@meetup.com SEQUENCE:1 DTSTAMP:20261030T073626Z DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20261213T101500 DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20261213T121500 SUMMARY:December Book - The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben (2016) 289pg DESCRIPTION:Twin Cities Non Fiction Book Club\n**from the publisher**\n"Ar e trees social beings? In The Hidden Life of Trees forester and author Pet er Wohlleben convincingly makes the case that\, yes\, the forest is a soci al network. He draws on groundbreaking scientific discoveries to describe how trees are like human families: tree parents live together with their c hildren\, communicate with them\, support them as they grow\, share nutrie nts with those who are sick or struggling\, and even warn each other of im pending dangers. Wohlleben also shares his deep love of woods and forests\ , explaining the amazing processes of life\, death\, and regeneration that he has observed in his woodland."\n\n*Please RSVP if you intend to come a nd change it if something comes up.\n\n* Please also bring ideas for book titles we might want to rrad as a group in the future\nBarnes & Noble open s at 10am on Sunday.\n\nPlan to order something to drink from the Cafe\, t hen find us in the cafe seating area. I'll bring a sign for the table with the group name. URL;VALUE=URI:https://www.meetup.com/twin-cities-non-fiction-book-club/eve nts/316047256/ STATUS:CONFIRMED CREATED:20260809T172510Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260809T172510Z CLASS:PUBLIC END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:event_316051952@meetup.com SEQUENCE:1 DTSTAMP:20261030T073626Z DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20270110T101500 DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20270110T121500 SUMMARY:January Book - Plastic Inc. by Beth Gardiner (2026) 352pg DESCRIPTION:Twin Cities Non Fiction Book Club\n**from the publisher**\n"Pl astic\, the foundational material of modern consumerism\, is everywhere in our daily lives. But the oil and petrochemical companies making it are hi ding in plain sight. Because for all the vivid coverage of where plastic e nds up\, there is remarkably little discussion of where it comes from. Tod ay\, industry is pouring billions of dollars into plans to double\, or eve n triple\, the amount it churns out\, even as individuals concerned about plastic’s out-of-control proliferation try to use less. As Big Oil stare s down a future of diminishing demand for fossil fuels\, plastic has becom e its financial lifeline.\n\nAward-winning journalist Beth Gardiner gives readers an up-close look at the plastic industry’s relentless growth\, i ts extraordinary profits\, its toxic pollution and its hidden role in exac erbating climate change. Every chapter in Plastic Inc. brings new revelati ons\, including how Big Oil pushed the lie that recycling was the answer t o our plastic mess\, even though companies always knew it couldn't work at scale\; the hidden health crisis caused by chemicals and microplastics in the items we use every day\; and the alarming parallels between the marke ting strategies used by plastic producers and those of tobacco companies a nd Big Pharma."\n\n*Please RSVP if you intend to come and change it if som ething comes up.\n\n* Please also bring ideas for book titles we might wan t to read as a group in the future\n\nBarnes & Noble opens at 10am on Sund ay.\n\nPlan to order something to drink from the Cafe\, then find us in th e cafe seating area. I'll bring a sign for the table with the group name. URL;VALUE=URI:https://www.meetup.com/twin-cities-non-fiction-book-club/eve nts/316051952/ STATUS:CONFIRMED CREATED:20260810T003940Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260810T003940Z CLASS:PUBLIC END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:event_316051981@meetup.com SEQUENCE:1 DTSTAMP:20261030T073626Z DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20270214T101500 DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20270214T121500 SUMMARY:February Book - The Infinity Machine by Sebastian Mallaby (2026) 4 80pg DESCRIPTION:Twin Cities Non Fiction Book Club\n**from the publisher**\n"Ev en by the standard of a tech industry stacked with so-called geniuses\, De mis Hassabis is a special case. Born poor in North London to immigrant par ents\, a chess prodigy by age five and wizard coder in his teens\, he turn ed down a seven figure offer before turning 18 to feed his insatiable scie ntific curiosity at Cambridge. Later\, he added a neuroscience PhD to his computer science skills to pursue the dream of artificial general intellig ence\, the ultimate goal being to unravel the mysteries of biology and the oretical physics and to usher in super-abundance. Alongside a small group of fellow travelers\, that is the path he is still on\, leading the AI res earch at Google\, winning a Nobel Prize along the way\, and imagining mach ines that will compound\, or possibly supplant\, the human understanding o f the universe.\n\nHassabis has given Sebastian Mallaby a great deal of hi s time\, sitting for over thirty hours of conversation. But Mallaby has al so drawn from Hassabis's detractors\, such as his estranged cofounder Must afa Suleyman\; from his rivals\, such as OpenAI's leading scientist Ilya S utskever\; and from academic pioneers who now fear for human survival\, su ch as Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton. The result is a revelatory account o f a singular figure and his company and a profound reckoning with this pro tean field as it leaps from the periphery to the center of our consciousne ss.\n\nNo one questions Hassabis’s brilliance. There are those who\, lik e Elon Musk\, have at times regarded him as an "evil genius." He is in a g ame where the stakes are matched only by the exorbitant costs — for tale nt\, and for compute. Celebrated scientists pursue the technology because they cannot resist the sweetness of discovery. Others pursue it for money or power. The inventors believe they control their technology\, but often\ , the technology controls them.\n\nDespite Hassabis’s pivotal role insid e Google’s engine room\, this is not a Silicon Valley story. Hassabis de als with the Valley and takes its money\, but remains outside and furiousl y critical of it\, lambasting its leaders in conversation with Mallaby. Th e end of this race cannot be known\, but as this great book shows us\, Has sabis's quest to will a new form of cognition into the world is a defining story for our era."\n\n*Please RSVP if you intend to come and change it i f something comes up.\n\n* Please also bring ideas for book titles we migh t want to read as a group in the future\n\nBarnes & Noble opens at 10am on Sunday.\n\nPlan to order something to drink from the Cafe\, then find us in the cafe seating area. I'll bring a sign for the table with the group n ame. URL;VALUE=URI:https://www.meetup.com/twin-cities-non-fiction-book-club/eve nts/316051981/ STATUS:CONFIRMED CREATED:20260810T004556Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260810T004556Z CLASS:PUBLIC END:VEVENT X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://www.meetup.com/twin-cities-non-fiction-book-club/ev ents/ical/ X-WR-CALNAME:Twin Cities Non Fiction Book Club END:VCALENDAR