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.
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!
Join In
Request to join our Goodreads group or 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
If you’re a first-time attendee, please sign up to be added to the notification list.
Our Reading List
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!
November 2024
The Icepick Surgeon
by Sam Kean
September 2024
Why We Die
by Venki Ramikrishnan
July 2024
Ghosts And The Japanese
by Michiko Iwasaka and Barre Toelken
May 2024
The Devil in the White City
by Erik Larson
March 2024
A Tomb With a View
by Peter Ross
January 2024
The Angel Makers
by Patti McCracken
November 2023
Madhouse at the End of the Earth
by Julian Sancton
September 2023
Stiff
by Mary Roach
July 2023
American Sherlock
by Kate Winkler Dawson
May 2023
All the Living and the Dead
by Hayley Campbell
March 2023
The Dead Beat
by Marilyn Johnson
January 2023
Over My Dead Body
by Greg Melville
November 2022
The Apparitionists
by Peter Manseau
September 2022
The Cold Vanish
by Jon Billman
July 2022
The Serpent and the Rainbow
by Wade Davis
May 2022
The Trauma Cleaner
by Sarah Krasnostein
March 2022
A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
by Emma Southon
January 2022
The Babysitter
by Liza Rodman and Jennifer Jordan
November 2021
Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs?
by Caitlin Doughty
September 2021
Out of the Shadows
by Emily Midorikawa
July 2021
Dark Archives
by Megan Rosenbloom
May 2021
Damnation Island
by Stacy Horn
March 2021
Ghost Maps
by Stephen Johnson
January 2021
The Lives They Left Behind
by Darby Penney and Peter Stastny
November 2020
The Third Rainbow Girl
by Emma Copley Eisenberg
September 2020
Pale Rider
by Laura Spinney
July 2020
The Lady and Her Monsters
by Roseanne Montillo
May 2020
The Radium Girls
by Kate Moore
March 2020
Furious Hours
by Casey Cep
January 2020
The Five
by Hallie Rubenhold
November 2019
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark
by Michelle McNamara
September 2019
The Indifferent Stars Above
by Daniel James Brown
July 2019
Death's Acre
by William Bass and Jon Jefferson
May 2019
The Wicked Boy
by Kate Summerscale
March 2019
Get Well Soon
by Jennifer Wright
January 2019
Killers of the Flower Moon
by David Grann
November 2018
In the Garden of Beasts
by Erik Larson
September 2018
The Immortalists
by Chloe Benjamin
July 2018
Lincoln in the Bardo
by George Saunders
May 2018
Bellevue
by David Oshinsky
March 2018
The Butchering Art
by Lindsey Fitzharris
January 2018
From Here to Eternity
by Caitlin Doughty
November 2017
The Lost City of the Monkey God
by Douglas Preston
September 2017
Playing Dead
by Elizabeth Greenwood
July 2017
Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley
May 2017
The Stranger in the Woods
by Michael Finkel
March 2017
In Cold Blood
by Truman Capote
January 2017
Dr. Mütter’s Marvels
by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
November 2016
In the Kingdom of Ice
by Hampton Sides
September 2016
Necropolis
by Catherine Arnold
July 2016
The Nuns of Sant’Ambrogio
by Hubert Wolf
May 2016
Dead Presidents
by Brady Carlson
March 2016
American Ghost
by Hannah Nordhaus
January 2016
Working Stiff
by Judy Melenik and TJ Mitchell
November 2015
Nine Years Under
by Sheri Booker
September 2015
Empty Mansions
by Bill Dedman
July 2015
Little Demon in the City of Light
by Steven Levingston
May 2015
Tinseltown
by William J. Mann
March 2015
Spook
by Mary Roach
January 2015
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory
by Caitlin Doughty
November 2014
The Worst Hard Time
by Timothy Egan
September 2014
The Skeleton Crew
by Deborah Halber
July 2014
The Lost City of Z
by David Grann
May 2014
The Monster of Florence
by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi
March 2014
Unbroken
by Laura Hillenbrand
January 2014
Assassination Vacation
by Sarah Vowell
November 2013
The Devil in the White City
by Erik Larson
September 2013
Stiff
by Mary Roach
