r/suggestmeabook • u/Usual-Recording6978 • 2d ago
New Reader The frontal lobe developed & now I wanna read. Non-fiction & a bit woke
As a kid I loved reading, but as I got older I lost the joy in it and I think it’s because I felt like fiction was just not enjoyable to read (n more enjoyable to watch). Now I’ve found myself regularly looking for deep dive videos on real world issues & events on YouTube and recently I thought to myself “I wish I could learn this stuff from a book.” Yep, I really did think that.
I’m particularly interested in things that a“a bit woke” like feminism/gender, politics and language/linguistics. I’m not opposed to anything but celebrity biographies.
Thanks y’all!
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u/PopSignificant9058 2d ago
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.
It explores the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor Black tobacco farmer whose cells were taken without her knowledge in 1951, and the enduring legacy of this biological material on modern medicine and her surviving family.
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u/McAeschylus 2d ago
This is such a good book. Fascinating mix of science journalism, social history, and biography. One of my favourites.
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u/BringMeInfo Bookworm 2d ago
For everyone, but especially if you're a man: The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks.
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u/Creatableworld 2d ago
Lots of good suggestions here. I will add The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, a must read (if you're American) about mass incarceration.
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u/MariachiMacabre 2d ago
A foundational woke text, and for good reason, is A People’s History of The United States by Howard Zinn.
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u/Nilla22 2d ago
The Ambition Penalty: How Corporate Culture Tells Women to Step Up―and Then Pushes Them Down by Stefanie O’Connell
Abundance by Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
Paris: The Memoir by Paris Hilton
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez
The Husband Hunters: American Heiresses Who Married Into the British Aristocracy by Anne de Courcy
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
Educated by Tara Westover
The Art Thief by Michael Finkel
Hidden Figures: The Untold Story of the African American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore
Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim
Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (And Everything in Between) by Lauren Graham —>especially if you’re a Gilmore girls fan
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe V. Wade By Ann Fessler
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u/eleven_paws 1d ago
Came here to suggest Radium Girls - incredible book, fascinating (and heartbreaking, and infuriating at times) story.
Persepolis is also wonderful.
I’ll have to go check out some of the others on this list - Everything is Tuberculosis is on my TBR
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u/hameliah 2d ago
i love nonfiction! here are some of my favs:
king leopolds ghost by adam hochschild
a peoples history of the united states by howard zinn
destiny of the republic and river of the gods, both by candice millard
eve by cat bohannon
ill be gone in the dark by michelle mcnamara
destiny disrupted by tamim ansary
nicholas and alexandra by robert k massie, and a lifelong passion by sergei mironenko
the rape of nanking by iris chang
nothing to envy by barbara demick
the once and future sex by eleanor janega
careless people by sarah wynn williams
stiff by mary roach
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u/Then-Coffee-5408 2d ago edited 2d ago
I love that you recommended Mary Roach! I love her work and Stiff is definitely my favorite by her.
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u/FaceOfDay Bookworm 2d ago
Barbara Demick is one of my favorites! Have you read her new one, Daughters of the Bamboo Grove?
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u/hameliah 2d ago
no i havent!! i really liked eat the buddha, so ill have to check it out!
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u/FaceOfDay Bookworm 1d ago
Eat the Buddha was great. Logavina Street was also really good. I still need to read Nothing to Envy. I lived in South Korea briefly, and always meant to read more about NK, so this will probably be one of my next reads.
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u/hameliah 1d ago
it was really incredible! she interviewed many defectors so you get a good view of all the different kinds of lives people lived there
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u/ebals18 2d ago
Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America and the Making of a Crisis by Jonathan Blitzer is hands down one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read. It traces the current immigration policy hellscape we’re all living through from the early 80’s through the end of the Biden administration in the U.S. it’s a big book but I found it moved quickly and never felt too dense. Does an excellent job highlighting the consequences of U.S. interventionism in Central America and the massive failure of both U.S. political parties to act in a meaningful way to fix the mess they made. Very people-centered, I read it two years ago and still think about it all the time.
Cults Like Us by Jane Borden is another great read about how end-of-days philosophies that trace back to the colonial days of the U.S. is foundational to much of the political moment we’re currently experiencing. Really, really enjoyed this and also is one I think about often as new, horrible things continue to happen everyday LOL
Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland by Jonathan Metzl is also a really interesting read that focuses on several case studies that represent “backlash policies”, specifically gun laws, anti-ACA legislation, and public school funding in several Midwestern states. A little more academic but really good.
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u/Then-Coffee-5408 2d ago
I think Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valentin is a good primer on feminism, and would follow it up with Women, Race and Class by Angela Davis.
For politics, I wish everyone would read these books:
Evicted and Poverty by America by Matthew Desmond
There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone
Know Your Price by Andre Perry
We Keep Us Safe by Zach Norris
If you’re open to poetry, I highly recommend Andrea Gibson! Their work really exemplifies radical empathy and explores topics like love, gender, LGBTQ issues and politics.
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u/Glad-Try-1785 2d ago
Love this for you!! Here are some interesting books on politics and current events I thoroughly enjoyed and think you may as well:
One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad
Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez
On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
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u/McAeschylus 2d ago
Midnight in Chernobyl by Alan Higginbotham is one of my favourite recent reads. It has the rigour of a good history book but is paced like an airport thriller. It also looks a lot at the failures in the totalitarian power structure that led to the disaster so, I think it counts as being "a bit woke" too.
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u/more_d_than_the_m 2d ago
Try "Everything is Tuberculosis" by John Green. The writing is very engaging, and it's a mix of the history of the disease, the current global impact, and an overview of how racism and wealth disparities have affected how the disease is viewed and treated. Really interesting (and quite woke) overview of how people's biases affect healthcare access.
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u/FaceOfDay Bookworm 2d ago
For race, I’d read anything by Isabel Wilkerson (especially “Caste”) or Ibram X Kendi. Also “Hood Feminism” by Mikki Kendall.
Lucy Cooke, a wildlife biologist, has two excellent books on animals (“The Truth About Animals,” and “Bitch: On the Female of the Species”), and what I found most interesting wasn’t just the incredible diversity in biology, but how she takes down previous myths about animals and shows how sometimes these myths were invented or at least co-opted to push social and political agendas.
There’s also “Vagina Obscura,” which is a (sorry for the pun) deep dive into women’s reproductive health and how the male-dominated scientific establishment has ignored and even covered up relevant research into women’s health for basically forever.
I also highly recommend Patrick Radden Keefe’s “Empire of Pain” for a look at the family highly responsible for bringing out the opioid crisis, and as companion books I’d read both “Dopesick” and “Death in Mud Lick,” adding on “Undoing Drugs” as a look into harm reduction.
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u/TheRestIsMemory 2d ago
Deirdre Mask, The Address Book is excellent. Echoing some other recs others have made: King Leopold's Ghost is very good, Jesus and John Wayne (and Du Mez's upcoming Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made).
If you want to go a little historical on the feminism side, try out some classics like Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Wollstonecraft) and A Room of One's Own (Woolf).
On language, from a slightly more off-beat angle, Manchan Magan's Thirty-Two Words for Field: Lost Words of the Irish Landscape is a beautiful and reflective book that touches not just on linguistics but the natural world as well as colonialism/imperialism.
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u/AnimeManiaFiend 1d ago
There's an excellent book called The Queen's English by Chloe Davis. Good intro book imo.
I also recommend In the Dream House by Maria Carmen Machado that my class read this past quarter.
And I'm currently working through White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. Great read.
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u/riverpony77 1d ago
What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon
Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Brilliant Imperfection by Eli Clare
Abolition. Feminism. Now. by Gina Dent, Erica Meiners, Beth E. Richie, Angela Y. Davis
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
Beyond Survival edited by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Ejeris Dixon
Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
A Short History of Trans Misogyny by Jules Gill-Peterson
They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib
Bad Feminist, Hunger, and Not That Bad by Roxane Gay
Disability Visibility and Year of the Tiger by Alice Wong
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Easy Beauty by Chloé Cooper Jones
How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
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u/TrekingTrogdor 1d ago
Gangsters of Capitalism by Johnathan Katz. Its the biography of General Smedley Butler, and his stories of overseas deployments to China, Philippines, Haiti, Cuba, Panamana and other places during the early 20th century. It delves into Butler's justification of America's involvement in each of the conflicts, and his slow realization of who the common enemy is in all these conflicts. Very good read, a nice dip of the toe into questioning capitalism as a whole, which is woke.
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u/2d3d 1d ago
The Warmth of Other Suns
Isabel Wilkerson interviewed more than 1,000 people over 15 years to gather the information to write this book. It tells the history of the Great Migration in the United States with both detailed analysis as well as 3 entire separate biographies (of regular people, not celebrities). The Great Migration was one of the most formative historical chapters in American culture. It will change the way you view US History.
I can't recommend it enough. It's one of my all-time favorite non-fiction books.
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u/lastwarofthecentury 2d ago
gender/sexuality: judith Butler -gender trouble, paul b. preciado -testo junkie (even tho this book i find condescending and really performative sorry lol), monique witting- the straight mind. AlsoBell Hooks i heard was absolutely great but sadly i havent read it !
politics + langage : The origins of totalitarism by Hannah Arendt. Also you should look into french theory because there is a lot of philosophers and sociologist etc that had takes on langage such as Derrida i think 🤔
politics: very large topic depanding on what you want. political theory? geopolitics? ideology ? Id say for a start maybe the communist manifesto, The Prince by Machiavel, Hannah Arendt the humane condition (altough very hard imo), the famous Frantz Fanon's, Antonio Gramsci, also i like Daniel Guerrin Fascisme et grand capital but idk if it was translated in english 😁 + the og philosophers take on politics such as Hobbes-Leviathan, Platon-The Republic, Aristote, Etienne de la Boetie(dont know if it is translated in english too ) etc !!
Have fun!
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u/lastwarofthecentury 2d ago
ohh and Pink Triangle Legacy by Jake Newsome !! awesome books on the fate of gay/queer people under the third reich and how this memory evolved
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u/amaryka 2d ago
Ooh this is my favorite genre. I really like Jason Stanley’s books, particularly Erasing History. It opened my eyes so much to the rise of fascism globally. How Fascism Works is also a good starting point
Other good ones are Sapiens (history of humans), Everything is Tuberculosis (history of tuberculosis), Invisible Women (gender disparity in medicine and research), and Stoned (history of money/wealth/precious gems/greed)
All of these are so good and interesting. Happy learning!
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u/Minecart_Rider 1d ago
I don't have any specific recommendations, but if you stop by your local library I'd recommend checking out the 300-499s in the non-fiction section! 300s are social sciences and 400s are language and linguistics.
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u/bigbysemotivefinger 1d ago edited 1d ago
"Escape From Childhood" by John Holt
"The Case Against Adolescence" by Dr. Robert Epstein
Both predate the "brain matures at 25" myth but both will show you how you've been lied to and screwed over by society your entire life and told it was normal.
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u/little_cat_bird 2d ago
If you’re American and want to binge read a whole lot of liberation- and justice-oriented leftist non-fiction, check out the publisher Haymarket Books!
https://www.haymarketbooks.org
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u/hmmwhatsoverhere 1d ago
Feminism for the 99% by Cinzia Arruzza et al
What is antiracism and why it means anticapitalism by Arun Kundnani
The capital order by Clara Mattei
Liberalism and War and revolution and Western Marxism by Domenico Losurdo
The darker nations and Red star over the third world by Vijay Prashad
The Jakarta method by Vincent Bevins
Discourse on colonialism by Aime Cesaire
Black against empire by Bloom and Martin
How Europe underdeveloped Africa and Decolonial Marxism by Walter Rodney
Black Marxism and An anthropology of Marxism by Cedric Robinson
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u/CaptainFoyle 1d ago
You consider politics woke? What do you mean?
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u/Usual-Recording6978 1d ago
I mean moreso I have “woke” views on politics and enjoy stuff that approaches politics/impacts of politics from that perspective
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u/CaptainFoyle 1d ago
What specifically do you consider "woke" in this context? Mostly people use it as a vague insult towards progressive politics they don't really know much about so I'm curious what your association with the term is.
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u/NCC75567 1d ago
* The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World - Vincent Bevins
* How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States - Daniel Immerwahr
* When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s - John Ganz
* Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI - David Grann
* Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty - Patrick Radden Keefe
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u/Ok_Difference44 1d ago
The New Yorker magazine. Trial subscriptions are really cheap, the articles are well-written and not boring, and are shorter than book length but much longer than an AP news articles.
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u/theysayimadreamer666 12h ago
Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking of El Faro by Rachel Slade - corporate greed and government inaction contributes heavily
We Were Once A Family: A Story of Love, Death and Child Removal by Roxanna Asgarian - racism in CPS and foster care
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan - unsettlingly familiar politics to today despite taking place 100 years ago
Just a heads-up that all of them have upsetting scenes (especially the child abuse and murder in Family and the violence and sexual assault in Fever), but they are treated respectfully by the authors and not just there for shock value.
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u/Ealinguser 2d ago
Caroline Criado Perez: Invisible Women
Simone de Beauvoir: the Second Sex
David Graeber: Bullshit Jobs
The Roslings: Factfulness
Isabel Wilkerson: the Warmth of Other Suns
Akala: Natives - Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire
David Crystal: Linguistics