May 2025 list by Donalee Jacobs |
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Atomic Dreams
by Rebecca Tuhus-dubrow
The inside story of how nuclear energy—long considered scary, controversial, and even apocalyptic—has become the hot topic of the climate debate, and perhaps a vital power source of the future.
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A Better Share
by Morgan Cutlip
Relationship expert Dr. Morgan Cutlip helps couples view the mental load--the endless and mostly invisible work of managing a household and family--as a shared enemy to conquer versus a problem they have with each other, offering practical solutions for navigating the most common pain points couples struggle with.
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The Book of Alchemy
by Suleika Jaouad
Explores the transformative power of journaling, blending the author's insights with essays and prompts from 100 writers, artists, and thinkers, offering guidance to navigate life's challenges, embrace creativity, and uncover deeper self-awareness through themes of beginnings, love, loss, and renewal.
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A Change of Habit
by Monica Clare
A witty and heartfelt memoir of a people pleaser who left her high-stress career and marriage to join a convent, discovering unexpected joys, challenges, and personal growth while embracing simplicity, community, and her true self.
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Change the Recipe
by José Andrés
A Michelin-starred chef with more than forty restaurants, José Andrés is also the founder of World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit dedicated to feeding the hungry in the wake of natural and man-made disasters. His lifetime of experience--from kitchens to conflict zones--has given him a wealth of stories and teachable moments that are funny, touching, and insightful, all animated by the belief that food can bring us closer together and the conviction that each of us can change the world for the better.
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Chicken-Fried Women
by Melissa Radke
The bestselling author of Eat Cake. Be Brave presents a heartfelt tribute to the bold and spirited Southern women who shape us through their wisdom and resilience, with stories of family, friendship and faith.
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Conquering Crisis
by William H. McRaven
Throughout his 40-year career, Admiral McRaven has experienced every manner of calamity imaginable. Throughout McRaven has learned how to successfully navigate crises. Conquering Crisis provides a new set of tools for facing these stressful moments with poise. It breaks crises down into five phases assess, report, contain, shape, and manage—and provides concrete steps to come out the other side stronger. With incredible personal stories, thought-provoking parables, and memorable lessons, Admiral McRaven sheds light on the ways we can rise to the occasion in times of crisis and act as leaders, no matter the situation.
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Enough is Enuf
by Gabe Henry
In the comic annals of linguistic history, legions of rebel wordsmiths have died on the hill of spelling reform, risking their reputations to bring English into the realm of the rational. This book is about them: Mark Twain, Ben Franklin, Eliza Burnz, C. S. Lewis, George Bernard Shaw, Charles Darwin, and the innumerable others who have tried to simplify spelling. Author Gabe Henry takes his humorous and informative chronicle right up to today as language seems to naturally be simplifying to fit the needs of our changing world thanks to technology—from texting to Twitter and emojis, the Simplified Spelling Movement may finally be having its day.
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The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity
by Sarah Schulman
For those who seek to combat injustice, solidarity with the oppressed is one of the highest ideals, yet it does not come without complication. Award-winning writer and cultural critic Sarah Schulman delves into the intricate and often misunderstood concept of solidarity to provide a new vision for what it means to engage in this work--and why it matters.
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The Fate of the Day
by Rick Atkinson
Chronicles the pivotal middle years of the American Revolution, tracing the Continental Army's fight for survival, George Washington's struggles for resources, Benjamin Franklin's diplomacy in Paris, and British attempts to suppress the rebellion in the face of mounting costs.
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Girl on Girl
by Sophie Gilbert
What happened to feminism in the 21st century? This question feels increasingly urgent after a period of reactionary cultural and legislative backlash. Sophie Gilbert, staff writer at The Atlantic and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism, mines the darker side of nostalgia, analyzing cultural objects of the era, across music, film, television, fashion, tabloid journalism, and more. She paints a devastating picture of an era when the American confluence of excess, materialism, and power-worship collided with the culture's reactionary, puritanical, and chauvinistic currents, resulting in a blistering indictment of the matrix of misogyny and how it continues to shape our world today.
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The Golden Road
by William Dalrymple
For a millennium and a half, India was a confident exporter of its diverse civilization, creating a vast empire of ideas. Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology blazed a trail that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific. In The Golden Road, bestselling author William Dalrymple highlights India's oft-forgotten position as the heart of ancient Eurasia. From the largest Hindu temple in the world at Angkor Wat to the Buddhism of China, from the trade that helped fund the Roman Empire to the creation of the numerals we use today (including zero), India transformed the culture and technology of its ancient world – and our world today as we know it.
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I Wish Someone Had Told Me ...
by Dana Perino
An all-star line-up of Dana's lifelong friends and Fox News personalities with wide-ranging talents and accomplishments share amazing stories about their own experiences. They collectively offer invaluable guidance and wisdom on a range of subjects for new graduates and everyone starting their first job; professionals thinking about making a change, transitioning into a different position, or phasing into a new career or act in life; and anyone looking for timeless insight and a helpful resource for self-improvement and career enhancement.
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If You Were My Daughter
by Marianne Richmond
Marianne Richmond's emotionally unavailable mother refuses to medicate her daughter's undiagnosed epilepsy, preferring prayer and homeopathy until a seizure at 18 leads to diagnosis, medication, and removal of a tumor—when her mother is diagnosed with Alzheimer's, will Marianne be present for her?
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Into the Ice
by Mark Synnott
Determined to navigate the treacherous Northwest Passage solo, an internationally certified mountain guide and Air Force Pararescue men trainer embarks on a pulse-pounding journey to both complete this rare feat and investigate the 250-year-old mystery of Sir John Franklin's lost expedition.
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Marketcrafters
by Chris Hughes
An economist and writer presents a revelatory and unexpected history of the rise of American capitalism—and an argument that entrepreneurial leaders in government, not the mythical “free market,” created the most dynamic economy the world has ever known.
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Medicine River
by Mary Annette Pember
Through searing interviews and assiduous historical reporting on Native American boarding schools from the mid-19th century to the 1930s, the author traces the evolution and continued rebirth of a culture whose country has been seemingly intent upon destroying it.
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More Everything Forever
by Adam Becker
According to Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, and more, the only good future for humanity is one powered by technology: trillions of humans living in space, functionally immortal, served by super intelligent AIs. In More Everything Forever, science writer Adam Becker investigates these wildly implausible and often profoundly immoral visions of tomorrow--and shows why, in reality, there is no good evidence that they will, or should, come to pass. The giants of Silicon Valley claim that their ideas are based on science, but the reality is darker: the author exposes the powerful and sinister ideas that dominate the tech world, challenging us to see how foolish, and dangerous, these visions of the future are.
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My Next Breath
by Jeremy Renner
Two-time Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner was the second-most-googled person in 2023—and not for his impressive filmography. His success on-screen faded to the periphery when a snowplow crushed him on New Year's Day 2023. Somehow able to keep breathing for more than half an hour, he was rushed to the ICU, after which he would face multiple surgeries and months of painful rehabilitation. Jeremy's memoir is a testament to the human spirit and its capacity to endure, evolve, and find purpose in the face of unimaginable adversity. His writing captures the essence of profound transformation, exploring the delicate interplay between vulnerability and strength, despair and hope, redemption and renewal.
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The Next Day
by Melinda Gates
In a rare window into some of her life's pivotal moments, Melinda French Gates draws from previously untold stories to offer a new perspective on encountering transitions. Transitions are moments in which we step out of our familiar surroundings and into a new landscape--a space that, for many people, is shadowed by confusion, fear, and indecision. The Next Day offers guidance on how to make the most of the time between an ending and a new beginning and how to move forward into the next day when the ground beneath you is shifting.
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The Ocean's Menagerie
by C. Drew Harvell
Explores the remarkable biology of ocean invertebrates, highlighting their extraordinary adaptations and contributions to medicine, engineering, and ecological balance, while weaving the author's personal journey as a marine biologist with a call to protect these ancient and vital underwater ecosystems.
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The Rebel Romanov
by Helen Rappaport
In 1795, Catherine the Great of Russia selected an innocent young German princess, Julie of Saxe-Coburg to marry her grandson Constantine. Though Julie had everything she could wish for, she was alone in a court riven with rivalries, plotting, and gossip—not to mention her brute of a husband. She longed to leave Russia and her disastrous marriage. Tsar Alexander finally granted her permission to leave in 1801. Despite entreaties from Constantine to return and provide an heir, she refused. At a time when many royal brides meekly submitted to disastrous marriages, Julie proved to be a woman ahead of her time, sacrificing her reputation and a life of luxury in exchange for the freedom to live as she wished.
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Searches
by Vauhini Vara
An award-winning tech journalist and editor illuminates how technological capitalism is both shaping and exploiting human existence, while proposing that by harnessing the collective creativity that makes humans unique, we might imagine a freer, more empowered relationship with our machines and with one another.
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Strangers in the Land
by Michael Luo
Beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, tens of thousands Chinese migrated to a distant land they called Gum Shan––Gold Mountain. Americans initially welcomed these Chinese arrivals, but, as their numbers grew, horrific episodes of racial terror erupted on the Pacific coast. A prolonged economic downturn helped create the conditions for a series of progressively more onerous federal laws aimed at excluding Chinese laborers from the country. In a captivating debut, Michael Luo follows the Chinese from these early years to modern times, as they persisted in the face of bigotry and persecution, while paving the way for people like Luo’s parents, immigrants from Taiwan.
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