Books like Among the Hidden — picked by fans

This is a sci-fi book from famous sci-fi author Phillip K. Dick. Besides suggesting some big, scary questions, it didn't exactly stick to what I usually go for in a sci-fi book.

For a while, it involved this product, Ubik, which has so many uses that it's everywhere. But the story drew me in with a relatively everyman-type guy on a team of psionic corporate spies—and then things get weird. It's the kind of weird like when I was struggling to remember this amazing horror movie I had seen, only to realize the media in question had actually been this unforgettable book.

Hey, look! It's totally a superhero comic! Some superheroes will probably get some super powers, and maybe a villain will try to destroy a town, and, true to superhero form, at least everything is kind of relatively okay in the end (not to spoil anything).

It has pretty much everyone's favorite superhero, since it has a lot of superheroes. Which is really interesting, because the first few pages are sheer horror. Seriously, it isn't every book that gets my mind flirting with a panic attack, but this one was fine after setting it down for a moment. Then it's mostly a superhero comic again and not really a horror story, except for when it is a horror story.

I found this book in my high school library, fresh off of The Old Kingdom (trilogy, at the time), and while I needed a break from the Ender's series. Seeing it on the shelf, it looked like a perfect option against the cultural backdrop that was the success of The Matrix.

This is from the less-likely-to-happen end of dystopian spectrum and involves evil overlords ruling over everyone after anyone over the age of fourteen has "disappeared" due to the "Change". No one over fourteen exists due to something called a "sad birthday", of which the details here will be spared, except to say it makes the annual games between districts look like little more than fanfare. Also, please keep stocking this book in school libraries because it is terrifying.

It's another sci-fi book! Luckily, it has a fun, psychedelic-flower-child color palette, so it should be fine.

Probably the biggest stretch on this list, this is mostly horror by implication. There are a lot of real-life event references, several characters are hippies (including the main character), and there's even a thread of romance. On the flip side, there's also some other stuff from the era of the "Summer of Love", like clandestine organizations and war protests that poignantly reminded me of the oxymoron, "fighting for peace".

An elegant mystery set in a near-to-partly-cloudy future. In the wake of some sort of apocalypse, communities have rebuilt.

In the Coast Road region, a sustainable civilization based on careful attention to quotas and mutual regard would seem an idyll of peaceful coexistence.

And yet. Enid is an investigator, called upon at times of uncomfortable questions.

She and her partner are called to look into a suspicious death. The buried realities encountered reveal a less-than-ideal picture of communities coping with things that do not fit with their presumptions.

A quiet mystery built atop a fascinating portrait of What Comes Next. I was drawn to the characters, the situation, but most especially the questions hovering just outside the confines of the story.

When I read this book as a young lawyer in reproductive rights in the 1990s, it resonated deeply with the daily bias that I witnessed against my clients. Decades later, a highlight of my book tour was being invited to do a talk with Professor Roberts at the Free Library of Philadelphia. Dorothy Roberts’ exploration of “race, reproduction and the meaning of liberty” is powerful.

Her writing clearly lays out how restrictions on abortion, parenting, and access to basic health care are shaped by and also perpetuate American racism. This book inspired me to work for equity and reproductive freedom for all, and hopefully, it will continue to do so for others, too. 

I’m writing this section just a couple of days after International Women’s Day (IWD).

IWD 2023 focussed on the gender gap in digital innovation. Closing this gap would contribute to progress in achieving substantive gender equality, but IWD organisers also argue, it would generate more economic growth.

This narrative is partial and ideological. It uses a fact (the gender gap) and a worthy objective (of eliminating that gap) to promote a particular conception of women – something that Naila Kabeer illuminates with great effect in Reversed Realities.

Part of the reason for socio-economic gender gaps is the amount of (often unpaid) time women spend caring for others. While care is foundational to what makes us human, in contemporary capitalist societies care work is devalued to the extent that much of it goes unpaid. Could it be otherwise?

Kabeer shows how so much ideology about gender equality is based upon the… show more.

For years, women have been imprisoned by the myth that we must rely on medications with undesired side effects to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Yet the reality is simple: Men can take the responsibility not to ejaculate inside someone who has not requested they do so.

This book helped me take control of my reproductive health by asserting boundaries for how partners treat me. It's my body, after all. 

Hartmann’s book is a classic and is in its third edition.

This is an essential reading for anyone who cares about feminist politics and abortion rights because it provides a global historical context. Laws and attitudes on reproductive rights differ dramatically across the world – where one country might restrict abortion and contraception, another country might grant easy access to contraception and abortion.

This book shows the dark history of global population control efforts that used abortion and contraception to attempt to lower birthrates in poor countries. She reminds us that, across the world, governments and other organizations have used heavy-handed tactics to force contraception and abortion on some people, especially in countries where there are worries about overpopulation.

Hartmann’s book warns against focusing too narrowly on the right to end a pregnancy, without focusing enough attention on the right to bear children too.

This book has arrived with a bang, telling stories about how women and couples navigate questions of contraception. Littlejohn is a great writer, telling vivid story after vivid story about how decisions about contraception get made -- who has it easy, who doesn't, and why women rarely fall in the first category.