Here are 100 books that Life's Vital Link fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have spent my career studying the evolution of female biology. My PhD thesis was on the evolution of pregnancy and menstruation. I am currently a researcher at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging studying the evolution of menopause. I also inhabit a female body and have a personal interest in understanding how and why my own body works the way it does. As a lifelong teacher who has taught high school, college, and graduate students, I am passionate about sharing what I know with other women. I hope you enjoy these fascinating books about the female body and its amazing evolutionary history.
The role of the female brain in driving the evolution of animal beauty is so fascinating that I’m recommending a second book on this topic called A Taste for the Beautiful.
Michael Ryan is an animal behaviorist who uses examples not just of birds but from all over the animal kingdom to show how animals—especially females—have a sexual aesthetic that has the power to drive the evolution of their own species.
Ryan is a superb storyteller and makes the material very accessible to his reader. After reading this book, you will never think about beauty in the same way again.
From one of the world's leading authorities on animal behavior, the astonishing story of how the brain drives the evolution of beauty in animals and humans
In A Taste for the Beautiful, Michael Ryan, one of the world's leading authorities on animal behavior, tells the remarkable story of how he and other scientists have taken up where Darwin left off, transforming our understanding of sexual selection and shedding new light on animal and human behavior. Drawing on cutting-edge science, Ryan explores key questions: Why do animals perceive certain traits as beautiful and others not? Do animals have an inherent sexual…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I have spent my career studying the evolution of female biology. My PhD thesis was on the evolution of pregnancy and menstruation. I am currently a researcher at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging studying the evolution of menopause. I also inhabit a female body and have a personal interest in understanding how and why my own body works the way it does. As a lifelong teacher who has taught high school, college, and graduate students, I am passionate about sharing what I know with other women. I hope you enjoy these fascinating books about the female body and its amazing evolutionary history.
Mother Nature completely changed the way I think about motherhood. As a mother of 4 kids, I am consumed both by my maternal responsibilities and with guilt for not meeting those responsibilities perfectly.
In this paradigm-shifting book, Hrdy takes her readers on a journey through human history and the animal world to reveal a different view of motherhood than the one mothers are conditioned to have—that mothers should sacrifice everything for their children.
Hrdy uses evolutionary theory, experimental evidence, and examples from nature to show how mammalian and primate mothers evolved to skillfully deal with the competing demands of survival and motherhood. Our bodies and brains are exquisitely built to balance our own needs with those of our children.
Mother Nature is the big new popular science book for the end of the millennium. It starts from the standpoint of Darwinist evolutionary theory, but turns it on its head. It is the first such major book by a women, qho ia professor of SocioBiology at the University of California, trained in Anthropology and an expert on Primates in particular. She's also one of the few women members fo the US Academy of Sciences. It's not for nothing that Nature is known as Mother Nature. Evolution is controlled, Hrdy demonstrates, not by the male of species, but by the female…
I have spent my career studying the evolution of female biology. My PhD thesis was on the evolution of pregnancy and menstruation. I am currently a researcher at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging studying the evolution of menopause. I also inhabit a female body and have a personal interest in understanding how and why my own body works the way it does. As a lifelong teacher who has taught high school, college, and graduate students, I am passionate about sharing what I know with other women. I hope you enjoy these fascinating books about the female body and its amazing evolutionary history.
Ancient Bodies, Modern Lives is an academic but accessible book about how our evolutionary history has shaped women’s health.
Trevathan tackles issues that are relevant and important to women, such as early puberty in girls, breast cancer, the difficulties encountered during pregnancy and childbirth, and the symptoms experienced during the menopause transition.
Her thesis—which has shaped much of my own work and writing—is that many of the health challenges women face today are the result of a mismatch between our ancient bodies and modern lifestyles. Trevathan helps readers understand what these mismatches are and suggests lifestyle changes that can improve our health and well-being.
How has bipedalism impacted human childbirth? Do PMS and postpartum depression have specific, maybe even beneficial, functions? These are only two of the many questions that specialists in evolutionary medicine seek to answer, and that anthropologist Wenda Trevathan addresses in Ancient Bodies, Modern Lives.
Exploring a range of women's health issues that may be viewed through an evolutionary lens, specifically focusing on reproduction, Trevathan delves into issues such as the medical consequences of early puberty in girls, the impact of migration, culture change, and poverty on reproductive health, and how fetal growth retardation affects health in later life. Hypothesizing that…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I have spent my career studying the evolution of female biology. My PhD thesis was on the evolution of pregnancy and menstruation. I am currently a researcher at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging studying the evolution of menopause. I also inhabit a female body and have a personal interest in understanding how and why my own body works the way it does. As a lifelong teacher who has taught high school, college, and graduate students, I am passionate about sharing what I know with other women. I hope you enjoy these fascinating books about the female body and its amazing evolutionary history.
The Evolution of Beauty is a passionately written manifesto about the role of female choice in driving the diversity of beauty in the animal world.
Prum revisits Charles Darwin’s original ideas about mate choice and beauty that were looked down on by Darwin’s contemporaries and forgotten by his successors. Prum, an ornithologist, uses exquisite descriptions of bird ornamentation and behavior to argue that beautiful traits like the peacock’s tail arise simply because the beholders of these traits—usually female—find them pleasurable to look at.
While most of the book is about birds, he delves into how mate choice may have transformed the human species. Prum tackles a controversial topic with humor, beautiful prose, and descriptions of bird beauty and behavior that will astonish you.
A major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences—what Darwin termed "the taste for the beautiful"—create the extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world.
"A delicious read, both seductive and mutinous.... Minutely detailed, exquisitely observant, deeply informed, and often tenderly sensual."—New York Times Book Review
In the great halls of science, dogma holds that Darwin's theory of natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves. But can adaptation by natural selection really account for everything we see in nature? Yale University…
There is a dearth of books that span the emotional journey into motherhood. An old adage directs authors to write the book they would like to read, so I kept that in mind as I began the journey myself. Throughout my pregnancy and postpartum experience, I was often surprised by perfectly ordinary occurrences that aren’t often discussed. There is a hush cast on anything that isn’t purely nurturing and romantic, which means that mothers who encounter unpleasantness are blindsided, and consider themselves aberrations. I wrote my book as honestly as possible to normalize the normal and to offer myself as a compatriot to those mothers.
This book delves into the science of pregnancy, but through a feminist lens. Through extensive research, Garbes details just how the female body creates life, a sometimes grisly and often wonderous process, as well as pans across our culture, with all its pitfalls, to explain just why women deserve better support through medical care and social nets.
A candid, feminist, and personal deep dive into the science and culture of pregnancy and motherhood
Like most first-time mothers, Angela Garbes was filled with questions when she became pregnant. What exactly is a placenta and how does it function? How does a body go into labor? Why is breast best? Is wine totally off-limits? But as she soon discovered, it’s not easy to find satisfying answers. Your obstetrician will cautiously quote statistics; online sources will scare you with conflicting and often inaccurate data; and even the most trusted books will offer information with a heavy dose of judgment. To…
I grew up as a fundamentalist Christian in the rural South of the United States. Gradually, I began to see the good and the bad in the church community and social community I loved as a child (and still love). My realizations led to tension in my heart, and that led to the creation of stories, both fiction and non-fiction. My list of five books is a kind of cornerstone (or touchstone?) of some of my present notions about our lives on earth before we each join the Majority.
I loved this novel in part because of three reasons: 1. A quote from the book: "Memory believes before knowledge remembers," 2. Faulkner's ability (in spite of a style many readers give up on) to put the reader in a particular complicated moral place as well in an emotional or psychological small piece of time. 3. Faukner's range from slap-stick to horror.
Once, a friend called me on the phone and said, "Clyde, I want to read you a quote from Light in August." Before he said another word, I said, "Memory believes before knowledge remembers."
A landmark in American fiction, Light in August explores Faulkner's central theme: the nature of evil. Joe Christmas - a man doomed, deracinated and alone - wanders the Deep South in search of an identity, and a place in society. After killing his perverted God-fearing lover, it becomes inevitable that he is pursued by a lynch-hungry mob. Yet after the sacrifice, there is new life, a determined ray of light in Faulkner's complex and tragic world.
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
There is a dearth of books that span the emotional journey into motherhood. An old adage directs authors to write the book they would like to read, so I kept that in mind as I began the journey myself. Throughout my pregnancy and postpartum experience, I was often surprised by perfectly ordinary occurrences that aren’t often discussed. There is a hush cast on anything that isn’t purely nurturing and romantic, which means that mothers who encounter unpleasantness are blindsided, and consider themselves aberrations. I wrote my book as honestly as possible to normalize the normal and to offer myself as a compatriot to those mothers.
This has become a classic pregnancy book, and for good reason. Oster is an economist who reevaluates often faulty maternal health studies and presents her conclusions in an accessible and sometimes light-hearted style. This is the book for expecting moms who want to know the whyof restrictions and recommendations, as well as their importance, in order to make the best decisions for themselves and their babies.
"Emily Oster is the non-judgmental girlfriend holding our hand and guiding us through pregnancy and motherhood. She has done the work to get us the hard facts in a soft, understandable way." -Amy Schumer
*Fully Revised and Updated for 2021*
What to Expect When You're Expecting meets Freakonomics: an award-winning economist disproves standard recommendations about pregnancy to empower women while they're expecting. From the author of Cribsheet and The Family Firm, a data-driven decision making guide to the early years of parenting
Pregnancy-unquestionably one of the most pro found, meaningful experiences of adulthood-can reduce otherwise intelligent women to, well, babies.…
I’ve been completing Dry Januarys (and other sober months) since 2017! In turn, I’ve felt more energized, more positive, have experienced better sleep and better skin, among other benefits. I think giving up alcohol for any amount of time is beneficial and I encourage people to try it.
Unlike many non-alcoholic recipe books, this one's for women who are trying to conceive, are already pregnant or are breastfeeding, or individuals who are looking for a little bit more nutrition in their sips. This collection of more than 40 nutritious mocktail recipes are unique and the book also includes tips for sustainable mixology
Selected as one of Food Network's "Best Healthy Cookbooks of 2019" and as a "favorite must-read" by The Bump, Drinking for Two is the perfect gift for pregnant women, the health conscious new mom, or any woman just trying to stay healthy! This book features 45+ delicious, plant-based mocktail recipes carefully crafted to deliver essential nutrients and antioxidants, and target common pregnancy symptoms, all leading to a healthy pregnancy.
With recipes for flat, bubbly, apres-dinner, and warm comfort drinks, registered dietitians Diana Licalzi and Kerry Criss carefully developed and tested each mocktail to include whole foods and all-natural sweeteners. Quick-to-prepare…
I've been a passionate lover of all things horror. I strive to take my readers on an unforgettable journey, one that often places them well out of their comfort zone. I believe that horror should make readers uncomfortable, whether through a mounting sense of unease or full-blown exposure to gore and depravity. I do my best to pull readers into my stories so that they can almost personally experience the horrors. If I don’t make them cringe and wince, then I have failed. As outrageous as my books may be, they're not full of violence and gore for the sake of mere shock value. I do my best to create well-developed characters with thought-provoking and immersive storylines.
Some
might say that this is a really crappy story. I will agree only to the extent
that this book does, in fact, center on feces. Sara Todd is pregnant and she’s
not craving pickles and ice cream!
This
book is brilliantly written. McCluskey presents a most vile and disgusting
story—one that is ripe with imagery and depravity. There’s not much that shocks
and disturbs me, to be honest, but this book had me muttering, “No, oh no, no,
no” in anticipation of the nasty deeds. Each one seemed progressively worse. It
will likely turn your stomach and surely disgust you!
Sarah Todd doesn’t believe in cravings. She’s pregnant and determined to live the next seven months giving the baby all they nutrients it needs to grow into a healthy baby boy, or girl. The baby, however, has other plans. How far is she willing to go to succumb to her… CRAVINGS?From the dark mind of D E McCluskey, author of CRACK and The Twelve, comes this disturbing novelette. The baby must have what the baby needs…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I’m a feminist author, illustrator, and UX designer who thrives on projects that help to improve awareness, healing, and community around marginalized identities. When I became a mother, I realized the importance of teaching and educating children around inclusivity and empathy. When we allow children to open their minds and question stagnant culture, we set the stage for real and meaningful collective growth. I center my work around this goal and focus on inclusive themes, often from perspectives that are unexpected.
This inclusive guide to how every family begins is exactly the book I was looking for to help my daughter understand such important topics. Covering everything from sex, IVF, adoptions, surrogacy, vaginal birth, cesarian, miscarriage, and more. I believe starting these conversations young helps to build trust and confidence in the parent-child relationship. To make a baby you need one egg, one sperm, and one womb.
This inclusive guide to how every family begins is an honest, cheerful tool for conversations between parents and their young ones.
To make a baby you need one egg, one sperm, and one womb. But every family starts in its own special way. This book answers the "Where did I come from?" question no matter who the reader is and how their life began. From all different kinds of conception through pregnancy to the birth itself, this candid and cozy guide is just right for the first conversations that parents will have with their children about how babies are made.
