The Good Book Club Podcast

Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon is a popular science book that reexamines human evolution by placing the female body at the center of the story rather than treating it as secondary. The book traces key traits—such as lactation, pregnancy, brain development, language, and menopause—back through millions of years of mammalian and human evolution, s...

The Ten Worlds: The New Psychology of Happiness argues that most people misunderstand what actually creates lasting happiness. In the book, authors Alex Lickerman and Ash ElDifrawi combine modern psychology with ideas drawn from Buddhist philosophy to explain that our happiness depends primarily on the beliefs we hold about life. They propose that people move through ten psychological “worlds,” or...

The Good Book Club held a Q&A with acclaimed author and historian John G. Turner to discuss his book "Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet." The discussion was so awesome we had to share it with a wider community! Our book club members asked a wide range of in depth questions as John weighs in on the life, teachings, and controversies surrounding the founder of the Mormonism....

Dan McClellan’s latest book, The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues , is a scholarly yet accessible examination of how people interpret the Bible — and often misinterpret it. In it, McClellan, a Bible scholar and popular TikToker known for his “data over dogma” approach, takes on hot-button topics like homosexuality, abortion, slavery, monothei...

Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life by Dacher Keltner explores how experiences of awe—moments that spark wonder, vastness, and deep emotional resonance—can meaningfully improve our well-being. Drawing on scientific research and stories from around the world, Keltner shows that awe helps us feel more connected, reduces stress, broadens our perspective, and ins...

The Mound Builder Myth: Fake History and the Hunt for a "Lost White Race" by Jason Colavito Say you found that a few dozen people, operating at the highest levels of society, conspired to create a false ancient history of the American continent to promote a religious, white-supremacist agenda in the service of supposedly patriotic ideals. Would you call it fake news? In nineteenth-century America,...

Laurie Lee Hall grew up knowing something about herself didn’t match how others saw her. Though born male, she deeply felt she was a girl. With no way to express this, she chose to live as a man and built a respected life in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—as a temple architect and church leader. In a faith where gender is seen as eternal and unchanging, her true identity remained...

We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe by Jorge Cham and Daniel Whiteson is a fun, accessible exploration of the biggest mysteries in modern physics. Blending humor with clear explanations, the book dives into what scientists don’t know about the universe—from dark matter and dark energy to the nature of space, time, and fundamental particles. Rather than offering definitive answers, the...

Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht is a sweeping intellectual history that explores the role of religious doubt, atheism, and skepticism throughout human civilization. Spanning from ancient times to the modern era, Hecht examines how doubt has been a crucial a...

In our meeting this month we discussed the book, "Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End" by Atul Gawande. In this very important book, the author, a surgeon, explores modern mortality, aging, and end-of-life care, examining how medical advances have changed our relationship with death and what makes life meaningful until the end. This was a very powerful discussion and a very importan...

Welcome to The Good Book Club Podcast where we make all our bookclub meetings available for viewers and listeners to enjoy. In our May bookclub meeting we discussed the book “The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity” by David Graeber and David Wengrow. This book offers a dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution―fr...

Welcome to The Good Book Club Podcast where we make all our book club meetings available for you to enjoy. This month we discussed the book "Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow" by Yuval Noah Harari. Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his...

Welcome to The Good Book Club podcast where we make all our bookclub meetings available for viewers and listeners to enjoy. Our book this month was “Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism”by linguist Amanda Montell Through juicy storytelling and cutting original research, Montell exposes the verbal elements that make a wide spectrum of communities “cultish,” revealing how they affect followers of gro...

Welcome to The Good Book Club Podcast, where we make all our book club meetings available for viewers and listeners to enjoy. In this book club meeting we discussed the book, " The Art of Living a Meaningless Existence: Ideas from Philosophy That Change the Way You Think"  by  Robert Pantano . In this book, the author attempts to provide the value of motivation and personal developm...

A panel discussion with author Matt Harris The Good Book Club meeting with author Matt Harris to discuss his groundbreaking book, “Second Class Saints: Black Mormons and the Struggle for Racial Equality.” This was recorded as a Mormonish episode. Members of the book club have the chance to ask Matt anything and everything they’ve ever wanted to know about the lifting of the Priesthood ban, Matt’s...

Welcome to The Good Book Club Podcast where we make all our bookclub meetings available for viewers and listeners to enjoy. This month we read and discussed the book, "Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of my Hasidic Roots" by Deborah Feldman. As a member of the strictly religious Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism, Deborah Feldman grew up under a code of relentlessly enforced customs governing...

In this Bookclub meeting, we discussed the book. “No Nonsense Spirituality: All the Tools No Belief Required” by Brittney Hartley. Britt was able to join us for most of the meeting and answer questions our Bookclub members had about the book. I know you’ll find this discussion absolutely fascinating and enlightening. This book club meeting was originally held on Sunday, December 10, 2024.

Welcome to The Good Book Club podcast where we make all our bookclub meetings available for viewers and listeners to enjoy. This month the book club discussed “Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End” by Bart Ehrman. You’ll find nearly everything the Bible says about the end in the Book of Revelation: a mystifying prophecy filled with bizarre symbolism, violent imagery, mangled syntax...

The book discussed at this meeting is “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life” by Mark Manson. In this entertaining and hard hitting self-help guide, the author cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people. In other words, there are only so many things we can give...

Welcome to The Good Book Club podcast where we make all our book club meetings available for viewers and listeners to enjoy. Today's episode features our discussion of the book, "Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia" by  Michael Shermer . In this very interesting discussion, Shermer sets out to discover what drives humans’ belief in life afte...

Welcome to The Good Book Club Podcast where we make all our bookclub meetings available for viewers and listeners to enjoy. Our bookclub discussion this month was centered on the book, "The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values" by Sam Harris. In this highly controversial book, Sam Harris seeks to link morality to the rest of human knowledge. Defining morality in terms of human a...

Delving into the latest research of psychologists and neuroscientists, HOW MINDS CHANGE explores the limits of reasoning, the power of groupthink, and the effects of deep canvassing. The book ultimately challenges us to question our own motives and beliefs. In an age of dangerous conspiratorial thinking, can we rise to the occasion with empathy? We really learned a lot from this book and we know y...

Welcome to The Good Book Club Podcast where we make all our bookclub meetings and bonus events available for listeners to enjoy. In this episode we discuss the ground breaking book, "The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World " by Max Fisher We all have a vague sense that social media is bad for our minds, for our children, and for our democracies. But...

Welcome to The Good Book Club podcast where we make all our book club meetings and bonus events available for listeners to enjoy. This episode features our bookclub discussion of "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared Diamond. In this groundbreaking book, the author convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that...

Welcome to The Good Book Club Podcast where we make all our bookclub meetings and bonus events availble for listeners and viewers to enjoy. On today's epiosde we discuss the book "Devil's Gate: Brigham Young and the Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy" by David Roberts. The book recounts the tragedy of the Willey and Martin handcart companies. In 1856, 220 Mormon pioneers traveling west to Utah, pushing...