Books like Healing Resistance — picked by fans

Jemisin combines geological apocalypse, complex magic, and generational trauma with raw power.

That’s something I explore in my own work, so this trilogy was a strong—if abstract—indirect influence. Few books have stayed with me so viscerally.

The writing is sharp, emotionally devastating, and fearless. It doesn’t just tell a story—it tears through it with tectonic force. It made me want to write braver and more honestly about pain, survival, and what breaks beneath the surface.

The first book in the Kingston Cycle series, Witchmark is set in a magic-powered Edwardian era just after the end of a World War. I loved the balance of soaring magic and gritty realism as well as the unexpected revelations surrounding each of the characters.

Miles — a witch who is desperate to keep from being used as a power source by mages — has faked his death and lives in hiding as a military doctor. However, when Tristan Hunter brings a dying man to Miles’ hospital, Miles’ secrets are threatened. But Tristan isn’t interested in blackmailing or exposing him. Instead he needs Miles to help him to track down a murderer and uncover an epidemic threatening to destroy all the magic in their world.

Obviously, the setting and premise had me from the start but the real fun of the book was following Miles and Tristan as they tried… show more.

The restorative justice movement didn’t start until after I got out of prison. We were mandated not to contact victims of our crimes. No one can think clearly when they’re under the threat of force and fear, so it took me many years to find true remorse.

When I was ready to write to the victims of my crime, as I reflected on my life while writing my book, I relied on Danielle’s book and Danielle’s personal guidance. She helped me see where I was minimizing or in denial, and I crafted my letter of repair for three weeks.

Her book helped me hold two ideas as true at the same time: I was participating in an act of harm when I was part of the group that robbed a liquor store and caused the man behind the counter to die, and I had to own that I was a… show more.

Along with authors like Alyssa Cole and Talia Hibbert, Courtney Milan is a luminary of romance’s liberatory wing. If love can conquer all, let’s aim it at something worthwhile! This book takes one of humanity’s deepest nonviolent instincts, the desire for one another, and shows how it gives people the strength to support each other through the hard work of building a better world. I want to recommend all of Milan’s books, but from a nonviolence perspective, The Devil Comes Courting stands out because of the way it also wrestles with what reconciliation (the last step in Kingian nonviolence) really means.

In the 1940s, journalist John Hersey wrote an eye-opening expose on the effects of the atomic bombing of Japan with Hiroshima. In doing so, Hersey began to shape the already-contested memory of why America dropped “the bomb.” Following in Hersey’s footsteps, in the early 1980s Jonathan Schell penned a straightforward warning about the atomic age. After interviewing scientists, policymakers, and intellectuals, he began to pen an accessible essay exposing of what would happen to earth after a nuclear war. The result was Fate of the Earth, and it went on to become one of the most impactful pieces of non-fiction of the decade. It helped to validate scientist Carl Sagan’s controversial “nuclear winter” hypothesis, and inspired an untold number of the public to engage in antinuclear activism. To appreciate the early 1980s as a period of intense nuclear fear, this is a must-read.

While studying for my Leadership Coaching Certification at Georgetown University, I heard Parker Palmer speak and immediately sought out his book.

His concepts of a "circle of trust" and his description of the yearning for an undivided life that encompasses our truth and how we operate in the world helped me navigate my choices and informed my approach to my work with organizational clients.

Through his work, I learned the cost of living a fragmented life and sought wholeness in my life and for my clients.

I spent a decade of my life working in conflict resolution, including as a Treaty negotiator defining Indigenous rights. And honestly, my earlier years as a female geologist in remote male-dominated bush camps had me learning to deal with conflict on a daily basis.

This book bravely declares what I intuited, namely that we have to take a break from the fear-driven pushing match and find the power of our ability to act out of love. It feels so courageous for him to state this. It requires a broad understanding of the nature of love, which Kahane has. He also describes how we need both powers to be successful, using inspiring stories of bringing together large groups of people to cause social change.

The basic laws of ecology should be taught to every child in the world. Food webs, watersheds, the hydrological and carbon cycles, population dynamics, and sustainable harvest are fundamental to our survival. 

Catton’s book explores population ecology and applies these lessons to human beings. He rejects racist historical tropes and misinformation alike, laying out the reality of human overshoot of the planet’s carrying capacity. This book is sobering, and should be required reading for every person in any position of leadership in the world today.

My dear colleague Simon Anholt is the founding father of the idea of the city, region or nation as brand.

He created the Anholt Ipsos Nation Brands Index and the Good Country Index; has written extensively on the subject; and has inspired me throughout my career. In his latest book The Good Country Equation he clearly proves – through the data that he’s collected – that for places to be admired, they have to be admirable.

In other words, places are respected for what they contribute to humanity and the planet, not for their propaganda. This is obviously an important discovery that forces governments and their stakeholders to focus on meaningful strategy, policy and cooperation as opposed to image promotion.

I also enjoyed reading Simon’s book as he shares his personal experiences as a government advisor.

I, like Garbes, was a pandemic mom who lived through the brief moment in 2020 and 2001 when it seemed our culture was finally about to recognize that the world runs on unacknowledged work by women. Garbes writes from her experience as a mother of young kids and a descendant of mass migration of nurses out of the Philippines, to open a window into what a world that valued care work would look like.

I love how Garbes sees that giving care its due would require a radical, almost spiritual change, but also how the solutions she sees go beyond the symbolic. She seamlessly blends the agenda of “mothering for social change” with the agenda of supporting the National Domestic Workers’ Alliance’s fight for fair working conditions for paid domestic workers. This book is a really special blend of mom lit and feminist politics.