Here are 100 books that Crash Override fans have personally recommended if you like Crash Override. Book DNA is a community of 13,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

Dorothy Littell Greco Author Of For the Love of Women

From my list on identifying and confronting misogyny.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve spent my entire life facing and dealing with misogyny. Last year, I wrote a book on the topic which marries storytelling, research, and journalism. For the Love of Women is vulnerable, but not a memoir; well-researched but not academic; and though it’s confrontive, it ends on a hopeful note. If you have any doubts that misogyny is an issue in America, you need to read this book. 

Dorothy's book list on identifying and confronting misogyny

Dorothy Littell Greco Why Dorothy loves this book

The world and the world’s products are based on male bodies and men’s needs, which can harm women.

Our patriarchal culture expects women to adjust and adapt in all kinds of ways. For example, PPEs (the suits worn by frontline medical workers during the pandemic) are designed for men’s bodies, even though most frontline health care workers are women.

Seat belts in automobiles continue to be designed based on crash-test dummies that do not replicate the female anatomy. These male-centric designs are not simply inconvenient—they are highly consequential. 

By Caroline Criado Perez ,

Why should I read it?

16 authors picked Invisible Women as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the 2019 Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award
Winner of the 2019 Royal Society Science Book Prize

Data is fundamental to the modern world. From economic development, to healthcare, to education and public policy, we rely on numbers to allocate resources and make crucial decisions. But because so much data fails to take into account gender, because it treats men as the default and women as atypical, bias and discrimination are baked into our systems. And women pay tremendous costs for this bias, in time, money, and often with their lives.

Celebrated feminist advocate…


If you love Crash Override...

Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

Book cover of Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

Kara Alaimo Author Of Over The Influence: Why Social Media is Toxic for Women and Girls - And How We Can Take it Back

From my list on what it’s like to be a woman in this sexist, misogynistic world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a communication professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, a social media user, and a mom. After Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, I wrote an op-ed for CNN arguing that he’d won the election on social media, and I just never stopped writing. A few hundred op-eds and a book later, I’m still interested in what social media is doing to us all and the issues women are up against in our society. My book allowed me to explore how social media is impacting every single aspect of the lives of women and girls and exactly what we can do about it. I wrote it as a call to arms.

Kara's book list on what it’s like to be a woman in this sexist, misogynistic world

Kara Alaimo Why Kara loves this book

Mikki Kendall’s account of what Black women and girls are up against in America left me angry and devastated. Her description of how Black girls are sexualized at shockingly young ages and how portraying them this way enables sexual abuse absolutely gutted me.

For me, this book was a powerful reminder of why no woman is safe in a culture that says you have to be viewed as respectable in order to be worthy of protection from violence.

By Mikki Kendall ,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Hood Feminism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"One of the most important books of the current moment."-Time

"A rousing call to action... It should be required reading for everyone."-Gabrielle Union, author of We're Going to Need More Wine

"A brutally candid and unobstructed portrait of mainstream white feminism." -Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist

A potent and electrifying critique of today's feminist movement announcing a fresh new voice in black feminism

Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist…


Book cover of Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny

Michelle Horton Author Of Dear Sister: A Memoir of Secrets, Survival, and Unbreakable Bonds

From my list on domestic violence victims punished for surviving.

Why am I passionate about this?

When my sister was suddenly arrested in 2017, I was thrust into an upside-down world where I had to quickly understand the severe domestic violence that she had been hiding, while also understanding the criminal legal system that was prosecuting her for killing her abuser. In order to do so, I immersed myself in experts and literature, eventually writing a memoir about the experience. These five books personally helped me understand the full scope of violence against women, whether perpetrated by an abusive person or an abusive system. 

Michelle's book list on domestic violence victims punished for surviving

Michelle Horton Why Michelle loves this book

This is another book that personally enlightened me to the core of my sister’s prosecution: misogyny. Before reading Kate Manne’s book, I had a broad and incomplete understanding of “misogyny,” despite it affecting every aspect of our society.

After reading this book—and understanding that misogyny is the way that women are controlled and punished in a patriarchal system—I couldn’t unsee the evidence of misogyny all around me. We cannot challenge gender-based violence without first understanding its fundamental building blocks.

By Kate Manne ,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Down Girl as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Misogyny is a hot topic, yet it's often misunderstood. What is misogyny, exactly? Who deserves to be called a misogynist? How does misogyny contrast with sexism, and why is it prone to persist - or increase - even when sexist gender roles are waning? This book is an exploration of misogyny in public life and politics, by the moral philosopher and writer Kate Manne. It argues that misogyny should not be understood primarily in terms of the hatred or hostility some
men feel toward all or most women. Rather, it's primarily about controlling, policing, punishing, and exiling the "bad" women…


If you love Zoe Quinn...

Book cover of Sexy Selfie Nation: Standing Up for Yourself in Today's Toxic, Sexist Culture

Sexy Selfie Nation by Leora Tanenbaum,

The problem is not with the actions young women take but with the toxic, sexist conditions they are responding to.

Tanenbaum found, based on six years of interviews with young people ages 14-30, that young women are navigating a culture littered with gendered dress codes, revenge porn, and sexually explicit…

Book cover of Nobody's Victim: Fighting Psychos, Stalkers, Pervs, and Trolls

Kara Alaimo Author Of Over The Influence: Why Social Media is Toxic for Women and Girls - And How We Can Take it Back

From my list on what it’s like to be a woman in this sexist, misogynistic world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a communication professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, a social media user, and a mom. After Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, I wrote an op-ed for CNN arguing that he’d won the election on social media, and I just never stopped writing. A few hundred op-eds and a book later, I’m still interested in what social media is doing to us all and the issues women are up against in our society. My book allowed me to explore how social media is impacting every single aspect of the lives of women and girls and exactly what we can do about it. I wrote it as a call to arms.

Kara's book list on what it’s like to be a woman in this sexist, misogynistic world

Kara Alaimo Why Kara loves this book

I loved that, in addition to telling stories of her clients, Goldberg (an attorney) writes about how she herself became the victim of cyber abuse by a former boyfriend. I think hearing this from a smart, successful woman can help other victims overcome the tendency to blame themselves.

The stories Goldberg tells in her book make clear how life-destroying it is when nude images of a woman are posted online, whether because of so-called “revenge porn” or sextortion. I think this is only going to become a bigger problem because now, thanks to AI, it’s so easy to create nude deepfakes.

Accounts like Goldberg’s can help galvanize the laws we need to criminalize the sharing of nude images without consent.

By Carrie Goldberg ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Nobody's Victim as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Nobody's Victim is an unflinching look at a hidden world most people don't know exists-one of stalking, blackmail, and sexual violence, online and off-and the incredible story of how one lawyer, determined to fight back, turned her own hell into a revolution.

"We are all a moment away from having our life overtaken by somebody hell-bent on our destruction." That grim reality-gleaned from personal experience and twenty years of trauma work-is a fundamental principle of Carrie Goldberg's cutting-edge victims' rights law firm.

Riveting and an essential timely conversation-starter, Nobody's Victim invites readers to join Carrie on the front lines…


Book cover of Take Back the Economy

Jess Rimington Author Of Beloved Economies

From my list on reimagining business from the ground up.

Why am I passionate about this?

Since a young age, I’ve been focused on how we can build a more just economy that restores and repairs versus extracts from our communities. My expertise is in the micro-economies of alternative, emerging economic solutions—in other words, how businesses and organizations can transform how they work to become pieces of an economy that works for all. 

Jess' book list on reimagining business from the ground up

Jess Rimington Why Jess loves this book

This is one of my all-time favorites!

I have a long-loved copy with pages highlighted, corners bent, and margins full of my excited scribbles. The first time I read it, I felt like I had found a true friend in its pages. It reflected back my own developing understanding of the economy and offered language for things I had only sensed.

More than anything, it made me feel less alone and reminded me that others were asking similar questions about how our world could work differently. Gibson-Graham helps the reader understand that the economy is not some far-off concept, but rather all of us, and the choices we make together. Therefore, the book inspires us to see the ways we can change the economy from the ground up. 

By J. K. Gibson-Graham , Jenny Cameron , Stephen Healy

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Take Back the Economy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?


In the wake of economic crisis on a global scale, more and more people are reconsidering their role in the economy and wondering what they can do to make it work better for humanity and the planet. In this innovative book, J. K. Gibson-Graham, Jenny Cameron, and Stephen Healy contribute complex understandings of economics in practical terms: what can we do right now, in our own communities, to make a difference?


Full of exercises, thinking tools, and inspiring examples from around the world, Take Back the Economy shows how people can implement small-scale changes in their own lives to create…


Book cover of Overheated: The Human Cost of Climate Change

Robert O. Schneider Author Of An Unmitigated Disaster: America's Response to COVID-19

From my list on the “war” between politics and science.

Why am I passionate about this?

My research and writing in the field of emergency or disaster management has been focused on the concept of hazard mitigation. This means reducing the impact of disasters, the creation of hazard resilient and sustainable communities, and the application of scientific and technical expertise to the task. We all live in a world where it has become more important than ever to make intelligent decisions driven by a comprehension of the properties of the physical universe. It is also a world in which economic self-interest and political interests may impede that idealistic goal. I have a sense of urgency about reducing the efficacy of such impediments.      

Robert's book list on the “war” between politics and science

Robert O. Schneider Why Robert loves this book

When I began to focus on and assess climate change as an emergency or disaster management issue, especially in the context of recurring natural disasters, this book by Andrew Guzman struck a nerve that helped me focus on what mattered most.

The human costs associated with what would be the catastrophic consequences of our failure to address what the author suggests is the greatest threat to human civilization are mind-blowing, to say the least. This is an excellent, if somewhat scary, overview. 

By Andrew T. Guzman ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Overheated as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Deniers of climate change sometimes quip that claims about global warming are more about political science than climate science. They are wrong on the science, but may be right with respect to its political implications. A hotter world, writes Andrew Guzman, will bring unprecedented migrations, famine, war, and disease. It will be a social and political disaster of the first order.

In Overheated, Guzman takes climate change out of the realm of scientific abstraction to explore its real-world consequences. He writes not as a scientist, but as an authority on international law and economics. He takes as his starting point…


If you love Crash Override...

Book cover of Crossing: A Chinese Family Railroad Novel

Crossing by Lisa Redfern,

Crossing is a vividly human re-imagining of the love, sacrifices, and accomplishments that two Chinese brothers - American Immigrants - experience as they travel to California to build the Transcontinental Railroad. 

Book cover of A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England

David N. Livingstone Author Of The Empire of Climate: A History of an Idea

From my list on the history of ideas.

Why am I passionate about this?

My love for ideas and their history was born when I was still in high school. It was my old English teacher who first opened up the power of ideas in literature to change the world. I’m pretty sure he loved Eleanor Roosevelt’s comment: “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” Whether or not that’s true, my taste was further sharpened when I took a two-year course on the history of thought about nature and culture as an undergraduate student. I was captivated. 

David's book list on the history of ideas

David N. Livingstone Why David loves this book

What I love about this book is the way it challenges the taken-for-granted thought that ‘truth’ is easily discovered. With compelling examples from the past, Shapin works through the ways in which scientific knowledge is made–the struggles that its practitioners have to engage in to construct and consolidate credibility.

What the author reveals is that trust is as fundamental in science as it is in everyday life. A revolutionary thought: who do we trust, and why?

By Steven Shapin ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Social History of Truth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

How do we come to trust our knowledge of the world? What are the means by which we distinguish true from false accounts? Why do we credit one observational statement over another? This study engages these universal questions through a recreation of a crucial period in the history of early modern science: the social world of gentlemen-philosophers in 17th-century England. The author paints a picture of the relations between gentlemanly culture and scientific practice. He argues that problems of credibility in science were practically solved through the codes and conventions of genteel conduct: trust, civility, honour, and integrity. These codes…


Book cover of As Gods: A Moral History of the Genetic Age

Kevin Davies Author Of Editing Humanity: The CRISPR Revolution and the New Era of Genome Editing

From my list on CRISPR and genome editing.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a British science editor and author of a string of books on the scientific, medical, and social implications of advances in genetics research. I trained as a geneticist but found more personal satisfaction wielding a pen rather than a pipette. I’m especially drawn to science stories that have medical implications for the public and a strong narrative thread. Prior to writing Editing Humanity, I covered the race for the BRCA1 breast cancer gene (Breakthrough), the Human Genome Project (Cracking the Genome), and the rise of personal genomics (The $1,000 Genome). I’m currently writing a biography of sickle cell disease, arguably the most famous genetic mutation in human history.

Kevin's book list on CRISPR and genome editing

Kevin Davies Why Kevin loves this book

British author, broadcaster and zoologist Matthew Cobb has written several books about the history of DNA research.

As Gods (the book’s original UK title is The Genetic Age) is a fast-paced analysis of “the thrilling and terrifying” 50-year history of genetic engineering and the rise of the biotechnology complex. But Cobb also asks tough questions regarding our propensity to meddle with nature, including the 2018 CRISPR babies scandal, reaching the unsettling conclusion that “dreams and nightmares must go hand in hand”.

By Matthew Cobb ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked As Gods as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The thrilling and terrifying history of genetic engineering  

In 2018, scientists manipulated the DNA of human babies for the first time. As biologist and historian Matthew Cobb shows in As Gods, this achievement was one many scientists have feared from the start of the genetic age. Four times in the last fifty years, geneticists, frightened by their own technology, have called a temporary halt to their experiments. They ought to be frightened: Now we have powers that can target the extinction of pests, change our own genes, or create dangerous new versions of diseases in an attempt to prevent future…


Book cover of Consumed: The Need for Collective Change: Colonialism, Climate Change, and Consumerism

Holly Trantham Author Of Beyond Getting By: The Financial Diet's Guide to Abundant and Intentional Living

From my list on rethinking your relationship with work and money.

Why am I passionate about this?

At The Financial Diet, I’ve written and produced videos about money, productivity, and work/life balance for the better part of a decade. I’ve come to the conclusion that most of our commonly held beliefs about money and work are incorrect: your job shouldn’t be your main purpose, and money shouldn’t be the end goal in and of itself. I’ve also been a longtime nonfiction reader, and I lead a monthly book club for our Patreon members. This list is composed of my favorite selections from those meetings (a few of which I’d read previously), and I hope they invite you to question your own relationship with work and money!

Holly's book list on rethinking your relationship with work and money

Holly Trantham Why Holly loves this book

I loved this no-nonsense take on consumer culture. Listen, I love to shop. I love an outfit. But Aja Barber’s writing was a necessary wake-up call when it came to my spending habits—what’s driving them and how they are impacting the planet.

It’s easy to think the world’s environmental and social issues driven by consumerism can’t be fixed with individual choice, so why bother changing? While that’s true on some level, I feel spiritually (and financially) lighter when I am buying less and caring better for what I already own.

This book helped me finally break some shopping habits I wasn’t proud of and gave me a framework to continue questioning which of my habits are driven by our consumer culture rather than my own genuine desires. 

By Aja Barber ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Consumed as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

***

'This powerful, speaking-truth-to-power book is an essential read for everybody who wants to stop feeling clueless and helpless about the impacts of cosumerism, and start doing their part to help create a more sustainable world' - Layla Saad

'A critique on what we buy, how it's made and the systems behind it that make an unfair and broken cycle' - New York Times

'The book is a blueprint for anyone who wants to do better' - VOGUE

'SUCH integrity. Aja is no bullsh*t.' - Florence Given

'Consumed takes us through the hideously complex topic of fashion and sustainability, from…


If you love Zoe Quinn...

Book cover of Child of Vanris

Child of Vanris by Nikki McCormack,

At five years old, Kasiel was found with the pointed ends of his ears cut off. Despite that brutal start, he’s lived twelve peaceful years with the man who took him in. Keeping his hair long over his mutilated ears helps him hide the fact that he is Vanrian, a…

Book cover of Abortion in Early Modern Italy

Nora Jaffary Author Of Reproduction and Its Discontents in Mexico: Childbirth and Contraception from 1750 to 1905

From my list on unearthing abortion’s hidden history.

Why am I passionate about this?

I began gathering stories about pregnancy and its avoidance in Mexican archives twenty-five years ago when I was working on my dissertation on religious history. This topic fascinated me because it was central to the preoccupations of so many women I knew, and it seemed to present a link to past generations. But as I researched, I also realized that radical differences existed between the experiences and attitudes of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Mexican women and the concerns, practices, and understandings of my own period that I had assumed were timeless and unchanging. For me, this was a liberating discovery. 

Nora's book list on unearthing abortion’s hidden history

Nora Jaffary Why Nora loves this book

I appreciate Christopolous’ book because he renders concrete the abstract realm of papal pronouncements by studying their reception by sixteenth-century Italian women and their confessors. He also unearths the complexity of attitudes to abortion that existed even within the church establishment in this period.

When Pope Sixtus issued a 1588 edict declaring all who aborted their pregnancies were automatically excommunicated and reserving the right to absolve them to the papacy alone, bishops across Italy’s Renaissance states objected. They argued that neither they nor their confessants could afford to travel to Rome to seek absolution; they sought mercy and forgiveness for the women to whom they ministered.

With this example, and in other parts of his book, Christopolous treats his subjects with sensitivity and precision.

By John Christopoulos ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Abortion in Early Modern Italy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A comprehensive history of abortion in Renaissance Italy.

In this authoritative history, John Christopoulos provides a provocative and far-reaching account of abortion in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy. His poignant portraits of women who terminated or were forced to terminate pregnancies offer a corrective to longstanding views: he finds that Italians maintained a fundamental ambivalence about abortion. Italians from all levels of society sought, had, and participated in abortions. Early modern Italy was not an absolute anti-abortion culture, an exemplary Catholic society centered on the "traditional family." Rather, Christopoulos shows, Italians held many views on abortion, and their responses to its…


Book cover of Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
Book cover of Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
Book cover of Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny

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