From the myth of Achilles and the scourge of malaria to Dracula and DDT, Biss brilliantly expands a straightforward question—to vaccinate or not to vaccinate—into
a multilayered investigation of fear and perception. You’ll never think of a simple shot the same way again.
Politt, a New York feminist icon, tackles the hot-button abortion issue, which, 40 years after Roe v. Wade, still makes headlines nearly every day. Her searing new book calls out for the reclamation of women’s rights and women’s bodies, and even staunch pro-choice advocates will learn something from her powerful arguments.
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In 2010, Nordberg wrote a groundbreaking story about Afghanistan’s bacha posh: young girls presented to the world as boys. In a culture ruled by men, this practice has a wealth of economic and social motives, which the journalist investigates through research and interviews in a moving narrative of oppression and subversion.
Buy The Underground Girls of Kabul
In a sharp cultural critique, Walters asks, how far have we really come in our attitudes and perceptions of the LGBT community? Her answer: Not far enough, not even close. While it may appear otherwise—from gay characters on TV shows to wider legal acknowledgment of gay marriage—the author argues that we are still a long way from equality.
Buy The Tolerance Trap
A Taliban commander. A warlord. A village housewife. These are the three people whose lives journalist Gopal chronicles in his account of the Afghan war, weaving together the intimacy of their stories with a larger narrative of mistakes and misconduct during this ongoing international conflict.
Buy No Good Men Among the Living
It’s truly been the year of Roxane Gay: First, a brilliant novel, and now one of the year’s must-read essay collections. With humor, bravery and cutting insight, Gay moves fluidly between topics ranging from abortion and being a woman of color to the TV show Girls and Sweet Valley High books.
Buy Bad Feminist
The best-selling author of The Shock Doctrine returns with a resounding call-to-arms about the urgency of climate change. Klein looks at how communities of the world can—and must—reduce greenhouse emissions to alter not only the devastating trajectory of climate change but issues of equality, democracy and economies.
Buy This Changes Everything
In a riveting social and scientific history, Eig charts the evolution of birth control through four major players who joined their scientific smarts, wealth and belief in reproductive freedom—and in doing so, revolutionized human sexuality.
Buy The Birth of the Pill
Some topics are still hard to talk about, among them the rigid boxes of gender roles that persist into the 21st century. Journalist and activist Penny translates her experiences in radical subcultures of the U.S. and U.K. into a manifesto of all things “unspeakable.”
Buy Unspeakable Things
Pulitzer-Prize winning biologist Wilson isn’t afraid to tackle the big questions, and this is…well, probably the biggest question there is. With his unique blend of science and philosophy, the author examines evolution, technology and our place in the cosmos, all while circling around one key word: Why?
Buy The Meaning of Human Existence
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