Saturday was the first meeting of the Boston Skeptics’ Book Club. We managed to grab a couch and some decent chairs at the Clear Conscience Cafe in Central Square, and we all had a decent discussion about what books and authors we want to add to the reading queue. Some of the books mentioned:

• Stiff and Spook by Mary Roach
• 59 Seconds by Richard Wiseman (due out in January 2010)
• SuperSense by Bruce Hood
• Trick or Treatment by Edzard Ernst
• Psychic Mafia by M. Lamar Keene
• How We Know What Isn’t So by Thomas Gilovich
• Breaking the Spell by Daniel C. Dennett
• Jesus, Interrupted by Bart Ehrman

The first book we’re going to start reading is Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle by Daniel L. Everett. From what I’ve read about the book, it’s half memoir about living in the Amazon and half about the science of linguistics and the unusual language of the people. One of the reasons I wanted to read this book is that there is also a storyline about how he came to the Amazon as a Christian missionary to convert a tribe of the Pirahã (pronounced pee-da-HAN) Indians, but instead ended up being converted himself into an atheist.

Our first meeting went well, and in addition to discussing which books we want to read, we also geeked out for a while (Star Trek, Science, and Games, oh my!) and sampled some of the food and beverages at the cafe (from what I hear, the Apple Cider is awesome). Our next meeting will be on Saturday, December 5th at 2 pm, also at the Clear Conscience Cafe (so far, we plan on meeting once a month around the aforementioned time). If anyone has any book suggestions, please email me [mary.brock (at) gmail.com] and I’ll add it to our discussion list for next time. I enjoyed meeting everyone, and I hope I will see everyone back (and maybe a few new faces) next month to discuss our latest book!

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