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Recommendations based on On Immunity: An Inoculationby Eula Biss
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Citizen: An American Lyric
by Claudia Rankine
Poetic exploration of racial injustice, highlighting the everyday experiences of racism.
A provocative meditation on race, Claudia Rankine's long-awaited follow up to her groundbreaking book Don't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting ... (Goodreads)
Bad Feminist
by Roxane Gay
A collection of essays exploring feminism, race, and gender, and their intersections.
Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be, cool, but it is pink—all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read, Vogue, and I’m not doing it ... (Goodreads)
The Empathy Exams
by Leslie Jamison
A collection of essays exploring empathy, pain, and human connection through personal experiences and cultural analysis.
From personal loss to phantom diseases, The Empathy Exams is a bold and brilliant collection; winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize. Beginning with her experience as a medical actor who was ... (Goodreads)
Between the World and Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
A letter to his son, exploring the realities of racism in America.
“This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.” In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American ... (Goodreads)
The Argonauts
by Maggie Nelson
A personal exploration of gender, sexuality, and love, weaving together memoir, criticism, and philosophy.
An intrepid voyage out to the frontiers of the latest thinking about love, language, and family. Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts is a genre-bending memoir, a work of "autotheory" offering fresh, ... (Goodreads)
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
by Atul Gawande
An exploration of the human experience of mortality and the importance of end-of-life care.
In, Being Mortal, author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending Medicine has triumphed in modern ... (Goodreads)
Men Explain Things to Me
by Rebecca Solnit
Examines the cultural phenomenon of men explaining things to women without full understanding of the topic.
In her comic, scathing essay “Men Explain Things to Me,” Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in conversations between men and women. She wrote about men who wrongly assume they know things ... (Goodreads)
Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
by Cheryl Strayed
Collection of heartfelt advice from a wise and compassionate storyteller.
Life can be hard: your lover cheats on you; you lose a family member; you can’t pay the bills - and it can be great: you've had the hottest sex of your life; you get that plum job; you muster the ... (Goodreads)
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
by Michael Pollan
Exploration of the modern food chain, examining the impact of food choices on our health and the environment.
What should we have for dinner? The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire , how we answer it today, at ... (Goodreads)
Blue Nights
by Joan Didion
A reflective look back at motherhood, memory and the fragility of life.
From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and ... (Goodreads)
What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
by Randall Munroe
A humorous exploration of science, tackling the most bizarre questions with real-world scenarios.
Randall Munroe left NASA in 2005 to start up his hugely popular site XKCD 'a web comic of romance, sarcasm, math and language' which offers a witty take on the world of science and geeks. It now has ... (Goodreads)
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
by Alison Bechdel
An autobiographical story of a daughter's complex relationship with her father and her own journey of self-discovery.
The narrative of Fun Home is non-linear and recursive. , Incidents are told and re-told in the light of new information or themes. , Bechdel describes the structure of Fun Home as a labyrinth , ... (Wikipedia)
So You Want to Talk About Race
by Ijeoma Oluo
A guide to discussing race and racism in America, providing insight and tools for productive conversations.
In this breakout book, Ijeoma Oluo explores the complex reality of today's racial landscape–from white privilege and police brutality to systemic discrimination and the Black Lives Matter ... (Goodreads)
El Deafo
by Cece Bell
Autobiographical graphic novel about a girl who becomes deaf and learns to navigate the world with her hearing aid, the Phonic Ear.
The book depicts the childhood of Cece Bell, who required the assistance of a Phonic Ear hearing aid while she was growing up to be the person who she is now. While the hearing aid enables her to ... (Wikipedia)
This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.
by Augusten Burroughs
A humorous yet thoughtful collection of personal stories and advice on dealing with life challenges.
If you're fat and fail every diet, if you're thin but can't get thin enough, if you lose your job, if your child dies, if you are diagnosed with cancer, if you always end up with exactly the wrong ... (Goodreads)
H is for Hawk
by Helen Macdonald
A journey of grief and healing, told through the eyes of a goshawk.
Obsession, madness, memory, myth, and history combine to achieve a distinctive blend of nature writing and memoir from an outstanding literary innovator. When Helen Macdonald's father died suddenly ... (Goodreads)
A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson
A captivating overview of the natural sciences, spanning the history of the universe.
In Bryson's biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory ... (Goodreads)
It Chooses You
by Miranda July
A collection of stories and interviews about the author's experience buying items from people who advertised them in the PennySaver classifieds.
In the summer of 2009, Miranda July was struggling to finish writing the screenplay for her much-anticipated second film. During her increasingly long lunch breaks, she began to obsessively read the ... (Goodreads)
Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx
by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
A non-fiction account of two young women and their families living in poverty in the Bronx, navigating love, drugs, and survival.
In her extraordinary bestseller, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc immerses readers in the intricacies of the ghetto, revealing the true sagas lurking behind the headlines of gangsta glamour, gold-drenched drug ... (Goodreads)
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
by Michael Pollan
Argument for a return to traditional diets and away from processed, industrialized food.
Michael Pollan's last book, The Omnivore's Dilemma , launched a national conversation about the American way of eating; now In Defense of Food shows us how to change it, one meal at a time. Pollan ... (Goodreads)
The Chronology of Water
by Lidia Yuknavitch
Intimate memoir of a woman's journey through pain, healing, and transformation.
This is not your mother’s memoir. In The Chronology of Water, Lidia Yuknavitch expertly moves the reader through issues of gender, sexuality, violence, and the family from the point of view of a ... (Goodreads)
India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy
by Ramachandra Guha
An expansive account of India's post-independence history, exploring its unique path to democracy.
A magisterial account of the pains, the struggles, the humiliations, and the glories of the world's largest and least likely democracy, Ramachandra Guha's India After Gandhi is a breathtaking ... (Goodreads)
The Writing Life
by Annie Dillard
A candid and insightful look into the life of a writer, exploring the challenges and rewards of the craft.
From Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Dillard, a collection that illuminates the dedication and daring that characterizes a writer's life. In these short essays, Annie Dillard—the author of Pilgrim at ... (Goodreads)
And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic
by Randy Shilts
A history of the AIDS epidemic and its impact on the world, politics, and individuals.
By the time Rock Hudson's death in 1985 alerted all America to the danger of the AIDS epidemic, the disease had spread across the nation, killing thousands of people and emerging as the greatest ... (Goodreads)
NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children
by Po Bronson
A revealing look at the latest scientific research on child development, debunking common myths and offering new insights into how to raise successful children.
In a world of modern, involved, caring parents, why are so many kids aggressive and cruel? Where is intelligence hidden in the brain, and why does that matter? Why do cross-racial friendships ... (Barnes & Noble)
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments
by David Foster Wallace
Collection of essays and arguments, exploring the absurdities of contemporary culture.
In this exuberantly praised book — a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary ... (Goodreads)
The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World
by Andrea Wulf
Biography of the German scientist who changed our understanding of the natural world.
The acclaimed author of Founding Gardeners reveals the forgotten life of Alexander von Humboldt, the visionary German naturalist whose ideas changed the way we see the natural world—and in the ... (Goodreads)
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
by J.D. Vance
An exploration of the struggles of working-class Americans, and the power of family and culture to shape one's life.
Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The disintegration of this group, a process that has been slowly occurring now for ... (Goodreads)
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress
by Steven Pinker
A data-driven argument for the progress of humanity through reason, science, and humanism.
If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ... (Goodreads)
Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson
Expose of the environmental damage caused by the widespread use of chemical pesticides.
Silent Spring is an environmental science book. The book documents the adverse environmental effects caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading ... (Goodreads)
