Tombs and Tomes Book Club
Tombs & Tomes Book Club
Book Club Basics
Tombs and Tomes is Congressional Cemetery’s book club.
We meet every other month on the second Tuesday in our historic Chapel, and we discuss primarily non-fiction books.
Our book selections have no rhyme and reason; however, our choices tend to stray towards the macabre, as is natural for a cemetery book club. Our very first meeting was in September 2013 and we chose to read Stiff, by Mary Roach (pictured here with Doug Graves, Congressional Cemetery’s mascot and NOT a real skeleton!).
It’s free to join, and mostly free to attend. For each in-person meeting, we simply ask that you bring either a $5 donation or a bit of food or wine to share with the group. Extra points for brownies!
Interested in learning more?
Read our January 2014 blog post about Tombs and Tomes,
Request to join our Goodreads group.
Still interested?
Sign up using the button below. This will add you to our mailing list where you will receive details for the next meeting.
Up Next
Tombs & Tomes Book Club July (In Person)
July 11 @ 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Tombs and Tomes is Congressional Cemetery's book club. We meet every other month in our historic Chapel (unless otherwise noted), and we discuss primarily non-fiction books. Our book selections have no rhyme and reason; however, our choices tend to stray towards the macabre, as is natural for a cemetery book club. Our very first meeting was in September 2013 and we chose to read Stiff, by Mary Roach (pictured here with Doug Graves, Congressional Cemetery's mascot and NOT a real skeleton!).
Past Reads
We warned you, our book club reads are eclectic!
Here are all of our past reads, and see below for our current pick. If you can’t join us at our meetings, read along with us!
Our Reading List
2013
September | Stiff by Mary Roach
November | The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
2014
January | Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
March | Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
May | The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi
July | The Lost City of Z by David Grann
September | The Skeleton Crew by Deborah Halber
November | The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
2015
January | Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
March | Spook by Mary Roach
May | Tinseltown: Murder, Mystery, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood by William J. Mann
July | Little Demon in the City of Light by Steven Levingston
September | Empty Mansions by Bill Dedman
November | Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home by Sheri Booker
2016
January | Working Stiff by Judy Melenik and TJ Mitchell
March | American Ghost by Hannah Nordhaus
May | Dead Presidents by Brady Carlson
July | The Nuns of Sant’Ambrogio by Hubert Wolf
September | Necropolis: London and Its Dead by Catherine Arnold
November | In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides
2017
January | Dr. Mütter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
March | In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
May | The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel
July | Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
September | Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud by Elizabeth Greenwood
November | The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston
2018
January | From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty
March | The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris
May | Bellevue by David Oshinsky
July | Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
September | The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
November | In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
2019
January | Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
March | Get Well Soon by Jennifer Wright
May | The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale
July | Death’s Acre by Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson
September | The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Story of the Donner Party by Daniel James Brown
November | I’ll be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
2020
January | The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
March | Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep
May | The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore
July | The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley’s Masterpiece by Roseanne Montillo
September | Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World by Laura Spinney
November | The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia by Emma Copley Eisenberg
2021
January | The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic by Darby Penney, Peter Stastny
March | Ghost Maps: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Stephen Johnson
May | Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, & Criminal in 19th-Century New York by Stacy Horn
July | Dark Archives: A Librarian’s Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin by Megan Rosenbloom
September | Out of the Shadows: Six Visionary Victorian Women in Search of a Public Voice by Emily Midorikawa
November | Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And other Questions about Dead Bodies by Caitlin Doughty
2022
January | The Babysitter: My Summers with a Serial Killer by Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan
March | A Fatal Things Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome by Emma Southon
May | The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman’s Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster by Sarah Krasnostein
July | The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist’s Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombies, and Magic by Wade Davis
September | The Cold Vanish: Seeking the Missing in North America’s Wildlands by Jon Billman
November | The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln’s Ghost by Peter Manseau
2023
January | Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America’s Cemeteries by Greg Melville
March | The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries by Marilyn Johnson
May | All the Living and the Dead: From Embalmers to Executioners, an Exploration of the People Who Have Made Death Their Life’s Work by Hayley Campbell
