Here are 100 books that Naturally Selective fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am a feminist writer and sexologist. My recent book narrates my search for sexual empowerment and presents my vision for a world where no woman is objectified. I teach courses on topics including orgasms, neurodiversity, and childbirth. I also coach people on their sex and love lives, empowering them to take control over their relationships. I am now working on a new book that imparts my long and winding triumph over chronic illness and reveals that having a female body is not a curse but a blessing.
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.
In Ejaculate Responsibly, Gabrielle Blair offers a provocative reframing of the abortion issue in post-Roe America. In a series of 28 brief arguments, she deftly makes the case for moving the abortion debate away from controlling and legislating women's bodies and instead directs the focus on men's lack of accountability in preventing unwanted pregnancies.
Highly readable, accessible, funny, and unflinching, Blair builds her argument by walking readers through the basics of fertility (men are 50 times more fertile than woman), the unfair burden placed on women when it comes to preventing pregnancy (90% of the birth control market is for…
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…
This list opens the door to the inner life of physicians: our hopes, fears, insecurities, and all of the internal and external pressures we face in our training and practice. As a doctor, I see myself in these books—not a superhero with “all of the answers,” but a human being in a profession suffering one of the largest crises of workforce burnout and moral injury. Seeing our physicians as real people will help us feel more empowered to bring our own true selves to the relationship. And really good healthcare is more likely to happen when souls connect.
This book is a must-read memoir for anyone, and certainly any woman, who will come in contact with our nation’s healthcare system.
The dark humor and excellent storytelling are the perfect soil to build a heartbreaking picture of the bias and misogyny that lurks in a woman’s most vulnerable moments. Sarah Ramey’s perspective on the healthcare system makes me want to weep and then do so much better.
'A visceral, scathing, erudite read that digs deep into how modern medicine continues to fail women and what can be done about it' Booklist
The darkly funny memoir of Sarah Ramey's years-long battle with a mysterious illness that doctors thought was all in her head - but wasn't. A revelation and an inspiration for millions of women whose legitimate health complaints are ignored.
In her harrowing, defiant and unforgettable memoir, Sarah Ramey recounts the decade-long saga of how a seemingly minor illness in her senior year of college turned into a prolonged and elusive condition that destroyed her health but…
I am a feminist writer and sexologist. My recent book narrates my search for sexual empowerment and presents my vision for a world where no woman is objectified. I teach courses on topics including orgasms, neurodiversity, and childbirth. I also coach people on their sex and love lives, empowering them to take control over their relationships. I am now working on a new book that imparts my long and winding triumph over chronic illness and reveals that having a female body is not a curse but a blessing.
We typically think of childbirth as a pain women must simply get through. Elizabeth Davis and Debra Pascali-Bonaro offer a wildly different perspective in this read. They show how birth can be a blissful, ecstatic experience—and why women have been robbed of this experience.
Reading this book not only made me excited about the prospect of giving birth but also helped me challenge the outdated conventional wisdom of "no pain, no gain."
Based on the hit documentary that inspired a vibrant online community, this innovative approach to birthing shows women how to maximize childbirth's emotional and physical rewards
With more than 4 million babies born in the United States each year, too many women experience birth as nothing more than a routine or painful event. In her much-praised film Orgasmic Birth, acclaimed filmmaker Debra Pascali-Bonaro showed that in fact childbirth is a natural process to be enjoyed and cherished. Now she joins forces with renowned author and activist Elizabeth Davis to offer an enlightening program to help women attain the most empowering…
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 am a feminist writer and sexologist. My recent book narrates my search for sexual empowerment and presents my vision for a world where no woman is objectified. I teach courses on topics including orgasms, neurodiversity, and childbirth. I also coach people on their sex and love lives, empowering them to take control over their relationships. I am now working on a new book that imparts my long and winding triumph over chronic illness and reveals that having a female body is not a curse but a blessing.
Women's genitals are too often painted as passive, empty holes. When we think of them, we think of the vagina rather than the vulva or clitoris. In this book, Irigaray offers a simple reframe: Our bodies are not zero. They are two.
Analyzing the symbolism of the female body, Irigaray challenges patriarchal logic. This book helped me become sexual in a way that honored my own body rather than submitting to the erasure so endemic to our culture.
"The publication of these two translations is an event to be celebrated by feminists of all persuasions."
Women's Review of Books
In This Sex Which Is Not One, Luce Irigaray elaborates on some of the major themes of Speculum of the Other Woman, her landmark work on the status of woman in Western philosophical discourse and in psychoanalytic theory, In eleven acute and widely ranging essays, Irigaray reconsiders the question of female sexuality in a variety of contexts that are relevant to current discussion of feminist theory and practice.
Among the topics she treats are the implications of the thought…
Growing up I never thought I would become a sex therapist. But I suffered terribly from sexual dysfunction as a young adult and I had no one to talk to. I felt alone and isolated, and disconnected from a vital part of being alive. I wrote about my personal experiences in She Comes First and how I eventually found my way out of the fog of sexual anxiety and despair. But that meant going against the grain of how I thought sex was supposed to go. Today I’m dedicated to having those real conversations with real people and helping people give their “sexual selves” a voice so they can connect with others.
In her compelling book, Elisabeth Lloyd examines whether or not the female orgasm is an evolutionary adaptation resulting from the process of natural selection, or rather an evolutional by-product – like male nipples.
Ms. Lloyd examines twenty-one theories that seek to promote the female orgasm as an adaptation – from the role of orgasm in helping to facilitate the pair-bonding process to upsucking and sperm-competition – and finds each and every one of them lacking.
As a sex therapist I receive emails daily from women who are unable to achieve orgasm via intercourse and wonder, "What can I do to change this? What's wrong with me?" Well if we stop thinking of female and male orgasms as something that "naturally" should result from intercourse, we can liberate both men and women from the oppressive intercourse-discourse (a belief that there's a right way to have orgasms, and simultaneous ones at that).
Why women evolved to have orgasms--when most of their primate relatives don't--is a persistent mystery among evolutionary biologists. In pursuing this mystery, Elisabeth Lloyd arrives at another: How could anything as inadequate as the evolutionary explanations of the female orgasm have passed muster as science? A judicious and revealing look at all twenty evolutionary accounts of the trait of human female orgasm, Lloyd's book is at the same time a case study of how certain biases steer science astray.
Over the past fifteen years, the effect of sexist or male-centered approaches to science has been hotly debated. Drawing especially on…
I have always wondered why people choose and act in particular ways, from heroism and altruism to selfishness and greed. Human society is a kaleidoscope of changing actions and fortunes. Social science tries to explain why. But I was dissatisfied with its answers. Then I discovered writers who used evolutionary ideas to help explain social and economic change. I realized that evolution did not mean reducing everything to biology. I became fascinated by Darwin’s deeper and wider ideas about human society, cooperation, and motivation. I read widely and joined with others of similar mind. It is an exciting and rewarding intellectual landscape to explore. I strongly recommend a long visit.
Plotkin’s brilliant book is about the nature and evolution of human knowledge. How do people gain and develop useful knowledge in a complex, uncertain, and changing world? Behaviorist theories of stimulus and response are inadequate. The mind must be primed to deal with complexity and uncertainty. Models from behaviorist psychology are unable to account for the acquisition of knowledge in such circumstances. Darwinian evolutionary theory helps to explain how the mind uses inherited instincts and culturally acquired habits to guide and enhance intelligence. As with the earlier work of the Darwinian psychologist and pragmatist, William James, instinct and habit are the enablers of intelligence, not its impediments. Knowledge is an evolutionary adaptation. This great book reveals more explosive implications of Darwinism for social science.
Bringing together evolutionary biology, psychology, and philosophy, Henry Plotkin presents a new science of knowledge that traces an unbreakable link between instinct and our ability to know. Since our ability to know our world depends primarily on what we call intelligence, intelligence must be understood as an extension of instinct. The capacity for knowledge is deeply rooted in our biology and, in a special sense, is shared by all living things.
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…
Life really is stranger than fiction, and some of the stuff served up by evolution is outrageously bizarre. There are one-celled creatures that make rats want to cozy up to cats, a parasitic worm that turns snails into “disco zombies” and an ape that communicates across continents by pushing keys to create rows and columns of pixels. I’m fascinated by all of these creatures and love writing books for children about evolutionary biology, especially the evolution of intelligence. Besides authoring How to Build a Human, I’ve written about the evolution of intelligence in dolphins (The Dolphins of Shark Bay) and crows (Crow Smarts: Inside the Brain of the World’s Brightest Bird).
A step more sophisticated than the picture books above, Life on Earth is targeted to children ages 9 to 12. The eye-catching format and succinct text cover the diversity of life on Earth, major evolutionary transitions, and nicely illustrates the process of natural selection through a succession of illustrations of frogs as the fittest individuals are selected by their environment. Engaging and packed with information.
There are millions of different kinds of plants and animals living on the earth, and millions more have lived here in the past. Where did they all come from? Why have some become extinct and others lived on?
What lived on Earth before us, who is still with us, and what prompts evolutionary change? In this remarkable picture book, Steve Jenkins uses his signature eye-popping art to answer these questions and explore the fascinating history of life on earth and the awe-inspiring story of evolution.
As a writer of dozens of books for children, I always learn much more that can go into each effort. A “wow” moment gets me started. It could be a giant cactus that grows so slowly, frogs that don’t ribbet, maybe a moment with a sea turtle, or thoughts on geology and natural wonders. Each book comes into a hazy focus after tons of research but much gets left out. What goes in? The best “wow” details get woven into an incredible story full of surprise, joy, and admiration for this world of constant change and those struggling to survive.
This is the best book to take a first look at evolution and creatures from long, long, long, long ago. Can you chomp? Grandmother Fish could. Can you crawl? Grandmother Reptile could. Who had a jaw, who could squeak, who cuddled with babies, who could climb? Wow! Can you do those things and talk too? With beautiful illustrations and simple wording, wonderful connections are made to show how all life is related. Thoughtful back material helps to explain natural selection and other concepts for those readers who will ask more questions.
It's a simple question, but not so simple an answer to explain especially to young children. Charles Darwin's theory of common descent no longer needs to be a scientific mystery to inquisitive young readers. Meet Grandmother Fish. Told in an engaging call and response text where a child can wiggle like a fish or hoot like an ape and brought to life by vibrant artwork, Grandmother Fish takes children and adults through the history of life on our planet and explains how we are all connected. The book also includes comprehensive backmatter, including: An elaborate illustration of the evolutionary tree…
My education began in a one room school in rural western New York. A lonely, curious childhood led me to love reading, and to explore woods, fields, and creeks. After high school I had no expectations of college, but serendipity led me to earn science degrees from Cornell University and the University of Massachusetts. Soon serendipity struck again: I was hired for a rookie editing/writing job at a children's science magazine. Lucky me, my curiosity about "how" and "why" questions led to being an award-winning author of 125 books, some for adults, nearly all children's nonfiction—about history, environmental problems, ecology, lives of scientists, and many creatures—including some that fascinated me as a kid.
Like many people, I used to think that evolution is always a very slow process, producing changes over spans of many thousands of years.
Thompson clearly presents evidence that significant changes can happen quickly, in a few years. Global warming is causing rapid change in environments, including severe droughts that speed evolutionary changes in birds and insects.
You don't need stone fossils as evidence of evolution. You and I can see evolution happening right now, as animal populations respond to dramatic changes in their usual habitats.
At a glance, most species seem adapted to the environment in which they live. Yet species relentlessly evolve, and populations within species evolve in different ways. Evolution, as it turns out, is much more dynamic than biologists realized just a few decades ago. In "Relentless Evolution", John N. Thompson explores why adaptive evolution never ceases and why natural selection acts on species in so many different ways. Thompson presents a view of life in which ongoing evolution is essential and inevitable. Each chapter focuses on one of the major problems in adaptive evolution: How fast is evolution? How strong is…
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…
My education began in a one room school in rural western New York. A lonely, curious childhood led me to love reading, and to explore woods, fields, and creeks. After high school I had no expectations of college, but serendipity led me to earn science degrees from Cornell University and the University of Massachusetts. Soon serendipity struck again: I was hired for a rookie editing/writing job at a children's science magazine. Lucky me, my curiosity about "how" and "why" questions led to being an award-winning author of 125 books, some for adults, nearly all children's nonfiction—about history, environmental problems, ecology, lives of scientists, and many creatures—including some that fascinated me as a kid.
I am impressed by how the author packs into just 94 pages a wealth of basic information, and even some fascinating obscure details about the process of evolution.
It is generously illustrated with color photographs and charts. Drawings and captions show "How Fossils Form," "Geological Time," and "Evidence in the Rocks," and Anne Wanjie's text is inviting and clear.
This compelling text examines evolution, its definition, the scientific evidence that evolution has taken place, natural selection, Darwin’s Origin of Species, genetics and evolution, population genetics, patterns in evolution and species concepts, the story of life and geological time, and human evolution. The easy-to-follow narrative offers students additional biological information in sidebars, such as “Closeup” boxes that give details about main concepts, “Try This” boxes that provide safe experiments for readers to perform, “What Do You Think?” panels that challenge students’ reading comprehension, “Applications” boxes that describe how biological knowledge improves daily life, “Red Herring” boxes that profile failed theories,…
