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…
The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.
On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…
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…
Jake Sledge, a rugged ex-cop turned private eye, teams up with his colossal partner Bobo to navigate the gritty streets of River City.
A murdered lawyer drags them into a web of political intrigue, neo-Nazi thugs, and bloody showdowns. With sharp wit and hard-hitting action, Jake tackles scumbags the only…
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…
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).
I love the simple, evocative way this story is told through a visit to the beach and the sketching in the sand of creatures representing various stages in evolution, from the first cells to human beings, reminding us of what we share with these long-lost ancestors and what divides us from earlier life forms. This picture book for children aged 4 to 7 distills a complex subject with verve and imagination and deserves a place on your child’s bookshelf.
All of us are part of an old, old family. The roots of our family tree reach back millions of years to the beginning of life on earth. Open this family album and embark on an amazing journey. You'll meet some of our oldest relatives--from both the land and the sea--and discover what we inherited from each of them along the many steps of our wondrous past. Complete with an illustrated timeline and glossary, here is the story of human evolution as it's never been told before.
Caroline Herschel has always lived in the shadows. Beholden to her wildly popular older brother, William, who rescued her from servitude, she's worked hard to build a life for herself – one where she can go unnoticed and repay the debt she believes she owes him. But when her brother…
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…
I’ve long been fascinated by how life unfolds from a single fertilized egg cell containing just one set of DNA, whether it’s a human, mouse, frog, worm, or anything else. While studying for my PhD in the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, which combines brings together researchers working on development and cancer, and spending twelve years in science communication at Cancer Research UK, the world’s largest cancer research charity, I came to see cancer and development as two sides of the same coin: one process unfolding healthy life as egg becomes embryo, and the other ultimately bringing disease and death as a single cell grows into a deadly tumor.
On the surface, this fascinating story about the evolutionary journeys of diverse animal species ranging from lizards to porcupines to field mice may seem a strange choice to include in a list of books about cancer, but in fact, it holds many important lessons about how evolution works and how likely we are to get the same outcomes if we ran the tape of time again. In turn, this is vital information underpinning our new understanding of cancer as an evolutionary process within the body, which can potentially be steered through the application of clever treatment strategies to bring about long-term control or even cures.
A major new book overturning our assumptions about how evolution works
Earth’s natural history is full of fascinating instances of convergence: phenomena like eyes and wings and tree-climbing lizards that have evolved independently, multiple times. But evolutionary biologists also point out many examples of contingency, cases where the tiniest change—a random mutation or an ancient butterfly sneeze—caused evolution to take a completely different course. What role does each force really play in the constantly changing natural world? Are the plants and animals that exist today, and we humans ourselves, inevitabilities or evolutionary flukes? And what does that say about life…
Rodney Bradford comes into Lindsay's restaurant, offers to buy her small house for double its value, eats her brownies, and drops dead on the sidewalk in front. Next, her almost-ex-husband offers to sign the divorce papers, but only if she'll give him her small,…
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.
