Here are 100 books that Perfect Me fans have personally recommended if you like
Perfect Me.
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I am a curious, passionate, and introspective woman. My values have led me to a quest to have a profound impact on the world and leave a legacy of healing. Each book on my list has profoundly impacted me and led me to challenge my values, rethink my priorities, heal my inner turmoil, and use my lived experience to help others lead a more meaningful life.
I love this book and recommend it to people struggling with negative body image.
Sonya Renee Taylor teaches that we are all connected and that self-judgment in one person extends to the judgment of all people. I found myself digging deeply into the roots of any critical views that I might have held of my own body and then challenging them. Ultimately, it helped me embrace body neutrality and, ultimately, body liberation.
"To build a world that works for everyone, we must first make the radical decision to love every facet of ourselves...'The body is not an apology' is the mantra we should all embrace." --Kimberlé Crenshaw, legal scholar and founder and Executive Director, African American Policy Forum
"Taylor invites us to break up with shame, to deepen our literacy, and to liberate our practice of celebrating every body and never apologizing for this body that is mine and takes care of me so well." --Alicia Garza, cocreator of the Black Lives Matter Global Network and Strategy + Partnerships Director, National Domestic…
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…
I’m a Rutgers professor of psychology and a body image scientist. Growing up, I was a dancer and learned to be dissatisfied with my body at a young age. These concerns inhabited so much mental space during my adolescence that I ultimately began to study these issues in college as a way to better understand myself and others who had similar experiences. I’ve been doing research on body image and eating behaviors for over 25 years now and write books about these topics to help other kids and adults who may be struggling with these issues. Can you imagine what we could accomplish if we all felt comfortable in our own skin?
I love this book for the personal stories. Virginia is a journalist who has written about health issues for over a decade (i.e., not a psychologist or nutritionist). She knows how to engage readers while teaching them a ton of valuable information about raising kids to have a healthy relationship with food and their bodies.
Virginia is unafraid to challenge the status quo and get readers to think differently about essential topics beyond parenting.
Change the way you talk about food, weight, and self-worth, forever.
We live in a world designed to make us hate our bodies. By the time children start school, most have learned that 'fat' is bad. As they get older, many pursue thinness to survive in a society that ties their value to their size. Parents worry both about the risks of their kids fixating on unrealistic beauty…
My interest and curiosity in this topic primarily came from life experience: not fitting in as a gangly Asian girl growing up in white suburbs and picked on for how I looked, working as a teen model in the late 1990s and early aughts, becoming a mother to three girls while opening up NPR’s first-ever bureau and living in Seoul, South Korea, the plastic surgery capital of the world. Ever since graduating from The University of Missouri-Columbia’s School of Journalism, I’ve been a professional journalist. Most of my career has been as an NPR correspondent, but I’ve also worked as a reporter for VICE and appeared in The Atlantic, WIRED, Slate, and numerous other publications.
If you are looking for a character-driven novel that takes you to modern Seoul and gets into the personal and social motivations for the cosmetic procedures that go unquestioned in South Korea, look no further than Frances Cha’s debut.
It’s an engrossing read with layered characters who are easy to root for, and a text that goes a long way to help us understand how the motivations for upgrading ourselves are not limited to just those on the other side of the Pacific.
A riveting debut novel set in contemporary Seoul, Korea, about four young women making their way in a world defined by impossible standards of beauty, after-hours room salons catering to wealthy men, ruthless social hierarchies, and K-pop mania
“Powerful and provocative . . . a novel about female strength, spirit, resilience—and the solace that friendship can sometimes provide.”—The Washington Post
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • NPR • Esquire • Bustle • BBC • New York Post • InStyle
Kyuri is an achingly beautiful woman with a hard-won job at a Seoul “room salon,”…
When Annie Thornton, midwife and apprentice witch, falls through time to a 15th-century Yorkshire village with her telepathic cat, Rosamund, she befriends Will and Jack, two soldiers returning from the French Wars. Mistress Meg, Annie’s ancestral aunt living in the 15th century, is…
My interest and curiosity in this topic primarily came from life experience: not fitting in as a gangly Asian girl growing up in white suburbs and picked on for how I looked, working as a teen model in the late 1990s and early aughts, becoming a mother to three girls while opening up NPR’s first-ever bureau and living in Seoul, South Korea, the plastic surgery capital of the world. Ever since graduating from The University of Missouri-Columbia’s School of Journalism, I’ve been a professional journalist. Most of my career has been as an NPR correspondent, but I’ve also worked as a reporter for VICE and appeared in The Atlantic, WIRED, Slate, and numerous other publications.
Oh my goodness, this is the most surprisingly fascinating book I’ve ever picked up, because I originally thought, how much could there be to learn about body hair removal? Well, the answer is, a lot.
It is ostensibly all about the history of body hair and body hair removal, but really it’s about abuse, freedom, and bodily autonomy and so many other sweeping topics. It’s funny, it’s fast-paced, it’s full of tidbits I continue to share with friends at cocktail parties.
Without giving too much away, I will say that as we move into an era in scientific innovation where it’s easier than ever before to genetically modify ourselves and other creatures, Herzig’s book is so evergreen and relevant.
Uncovers the history of hair removal practices and sheds light on the prolific culture of beauty
From the clamshell razors and homemade lye depilatories used in colonial America to the diode lasers and prescription pharmaceuticals available today, Americans have used a staggering array of tools to remove hair deemed unsightly, unnatural, or excessive. This is true especially for women and girls; conservative estimates indicate that 99% of American women have tried hair removal, and at least 85% regularly remove hair from their faces, armpits, legs, and bikini lines. How and when does hair become a problem-what makes some growth "excessive"?…
I am a Partner at Dalberg Global Development Advisors, where I lead a lot of our finance and investment advisory work with development finance institutions, family offices, and impact investors. I also serve on several impact investment and field-building organization advisory boards and regularly contribute to the ecosystem through thought leadership and speaking engagements at leading conferences. Over the course of my 20+ year career, I have played the role of advisor, investor, and technical assistance provider on more than 200 individual projects across the globe.
This is an inspiring read from a real changemaker.
Morgan is also someone I have had the pleasure of getting to know through the impact investing conference circuit, and I enjoyed reading her firsthand account of how she combined her social activist desires with the practical tools of finance and investment to create ‘real impact.’
One of my favorite sections of the book was on her early days and successes with shareholder activism. This book and her story are ones that many impact-minded leaders can learn from.
Impact investment, the support of social and environmental projects with a financial return, has become a hot topic in the world's philanthropy and development circles, and is growing exponentially: in the next decade, it is poised to eclipse traditional aid by ten times. Yet for all the excitement, there is work to do to ensure it actually realizes its potential. Will impact investment empower millions of people worldwide, or will it just replicate the same failures that have plagued the aid and antipoverty industry?
Enter Morgan Simon. When she was a twenty-year-old college student at Swarthmore, Simon compelled Lockheed Martin…
I love cities, and as a former Mayor, I understand their vibrant complexity. Like all of us, I am deeply worried about planetary breakdown, but unlike most, I’ve had the privilege of seeing firsthand the great work that leading mayors are undertaking globally to address the climate crisis. It's my belief that if more of us knew what is happening in some cities, and therefore what is possible in all, we would not only see that it is possible to avoid climate breakdown but fuelled by that hope, we would demand change from those we elect. You can hear more in the podcast I lead, Cities 1.5, or read more in my occasional newsletter on substack.
This book is a lovingly and expertly written biography of an underappreciated but vastly significant economist, Herman Daly. Professor Daly was an early proponent of ecological economics, and his work is becoming increasingly important and relevant if we want to stop climate breakdown.
One of the main reasons we are approaching climate breakdown is because neo-liberal economic theories and the economic system they have led to through trade agreements and the like rely on false or oversimplified assumptions—like pollution is free or that any resource constraints can be met by new inventions. The fact that neither is true—and the policy implications that set out from that conclusion - are persuasively documented in this biography.
The book is about economics and a great economist who brilliantly and convincingly demonstrated that the Planet and human resource demands on it must be included in our economic analysis and rules. As such, the biography…
As the first biography of Professor Herman Daly, this book provides an in-depth account of one of the leading thinkers and most widely read writers on economics, environment and sustainability.
Herman Daly's economics for a full world, based on his steady-state economics, has been widely acknowledged through numerous prestigious international awards and prizes. Drawing on extensive interviews with Daly and in-depth analysis of his publications and debates, Peter Victor presents a unique insight into Daly's life from childhood to the present day, describing his intellectual development, inspirations and influence. Much of the book is devoted to a comprehensive account of…
Chasing Light is a lyrical meditation on grief, memory, and the fragile beauty of everyday life. At its core, it is a story of resilience, forgiveness, and the transformational power of human connection. It sheds light on the overlooked realities of homelessness and addiction, while emphasizing the importance of compassion…
I have always been fascinated with bodies: the meaning we make of them; the suffering, joy, and indignities we receive through them; the outer limits of what we can do to and with them. I’ve worked in careers that have asked a lot of my own body, and I write about the brutalities humans inflict upon our own and other bodies. My work is obsessed with questions of how and why we endure suffering. Also, I’ve done a lot of dumb shit to and with my own body that has given me (in addition to a lifetime of medical problems) a highly specific perspective about intensity, hazard, and pain.
What if you got hit by lightning? What if the lightning came from inside your body? What if you are such an obsessive writer and researcher that you then had to trace the supply chain of the failed medical device that did that to you?
KS does body writing as a research quest, taking her battered heart back and forth across the Atlantic in pursuit of answers to the question of what, exactly, she’d been carrying around in it. The sense of vulnerability—medical, economic, and otherwise—that she creates within the narrative is so felt that I couldn’t shake it when I was done reading.
What if a lifesaving medical device causes loss of life along its supply chain? That's the question Katherine E. Standefer finds herself asking one night after being suddenly shocked by her implanted cardiac defibrillator.
In this gripping, intimate memoir about health, illness, and the invisible reverberating effects of our medical system, Standefer recounts the astonishing true story of the rare diagnosis that upended her rugged life in the mountains of Wyoming and sent her tumbling into a fraught maze of cardiology units, dramatic surgeries, and slow, painful recoveries. As her life increasingly comes to revolve around the internal defibrillator freshly…
I’ve always thought of myself as someone who “cares about animals,” but I came to see that I was thinking mainly about mammals and birds and overlooking the vast majority of animal life: fishes and invertebrates. I’m a philosophy professor at the London School of Economics, and for almost 10 years now, I’ve also been part of an emerging international community of “animal sentience” researchers—researchers dedicated to investigating the feelings of animals scientifically. In 2021, a team led by me advised the UK government to protect octopuses, crabs, and lobsters—and the government changed the law in response. But there is a lot more we need to change.
Are things getting better or worse for farmed animals? I greatly appreciate the honesty of Peter Singer’s update to his 1975 classic. His dream was to inspire a movement that would end cruel “factory farming” by boycotting its products. And he did inspire a movement—but the industry has only got bigger, more intensive, more brutal, more ruthless.
It’s wrecking our environment, our health, and other animals’ lives all at once. The enemy was tougher to beat than he thought. Where do we go from here if we care about other animals? I think this book is a really powerful place to start.
THE UPDATED CLASSIC OF THE ANIMAL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, NOW WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY YUVAL NOAH HARARI
“The indispensable foundational text for the movement, new and updated with the honesty and philosophical depth characteristic of all of Singer’s work.” —J.M. Coetzee, author of The Lives of Animals and Disgrace
“Peter Singer may be the most controversial philosopher alive; he is certainly among the most influential.”—The New Yorker
Few books maintain their relevance – and have remained continuously in print – nearly 50 years after they were first published. Animal Liberation, one of TIME’s “All-TIME 100 Best Non-Fiction Books” is one such…
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.
Quinn’s description of their abuse by online trolls is one of the most harrowing I’ve ever heard. I think it’s an incredibly important account of how dangerous it can be to be a woman on the internet (Quinn is now nonbinary).
One thing that really stood out to me is that, despite everything, Quinn still thinks the internet is an amazing place. This had a big influence on my view that women shouldn’t stop using social networks even though they’re so toxic. Social networks are also places where women can empower ourselves (Quinn developed their career and overcame the challenges of dating as a queer teen online), and we need to be able to wield this power.
You've heard the stories about the dark side of the internet--hackers, #gamergate, anonymous mobs attacking an unlucky victim, and revenge porn--but they remain just that: stories. Surely these things would never happen to you.
Zoe Quinn used to feel the same way. She is a video game developer whose ex-boyfriend published a crazed blog post cobbled together from private information, half-truths, and outright fictions, along with a rallying cry to the online hordes to go after her. They answered in the form of a so-called movement known as #gamergate--they hacked her accounts; stole nude photos of her; harassed her family,…
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman
by
Alexis Krasilovsky,
Kate from Jules et Jim meets I Love Dick.
A young woman filmmaker’s journey of self-discovery, set against a backdrop of the sexual liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, we follow Ana Fried as she faces the ultimate…
As a feminist academic and activist, I am personally committed to the cause of reproductive freedom. Professionally, I've spent the past seven years carrying out research on abortion pills and their travels around the globe. This research involved more than eighty interviews with activists and doctors across the world, as well as analysis of many different text sources. My work has also taken me into activist spaces across Europe, as a volunteer with the Abortion Support Network. Although I entered the topic of reproductive rights through my interest in abortion, reading widely in the field has led me to pursue research interests in reproductive and biomedical technologies in other areas of sexual and reproductive health.
Eve tackles the topic of ectogenesis – gestation outside the womb. From literature to bioethics to cutting-edge medical research, the book examines this complex topic in creative ways.
Its chapter on abortion politics is particularly insightful because it considers how technology that allows for gestation in artificial wombs might lead to restrictions in abortion laws.
Horn’s writing blends sociological, legal, and bioethical analysis together with personal reflections on her own experience of pregnancy.
Not only is this one of the best books I’ve read on reproductive politics, but it’s one of the best books on the experience of being pregnant because it beautifully reflects on the complex social meanings of pregnancy and its physical embodiment. Eve is written in a highly accessible style, so readers without prior knowledge of the topic will find the narrative compelling.
SELECTED AS A NEW SCIENTIST 'BOOKS TO EXPAND YOUR MIND'
'THOUGHTFUL ... EXAMINES THE BOUNDARIES OF MOTHERHOOD THROUGH AN UNUSUAL LENS: ARTIFICIAL WOMBS. ... A SKILLED WRITER WITH A CAREFUL GRASP OF HER SUBJECT AND ITS FASCINATING HISTORY' Angela Saini, Telegraph
'AN ENGROSSING INSIGHT INTO THE FUTURE OF BIRTH THROUGH THE LENSES OF THE MOST PRESSING WOMEN'S HEALTH ISSUES OF OUR ERA' New Statesman
Throughout human history, every single one of us has been born from a person. So far. But that is about to change.
Scientific research is on the cusp of being able to grow babies outside human…
