Publication year 2021
Genre Autobiography / Memoir, Nonfiction
Themes Environment, Plants, Gender Identity, Community
Tags Science & Nature, Biography
Science & Nature
Texts in this collection explore topics like climate change, energy, and humanity's place in the environment through a variety of genres, whether the science fiction of Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake or the scientific journalism of Dan Egan's The Death and Life of the Great Lakes.
Finding the Mother Tree
Fire Weather
Five Days at Memorial
Flash Boys
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions
Flight Behavior
Flow
Fooled By Randomness
Frames of Mind
Freakonomics
Frightful's Mountain
From Here to Eternity
From the Desire Field
Full Body Burden
Future Home of the Living God
Fuzz
Fuzzy Mud
Garbology
Gathering Moss
George's Secret Key to the Universe
Publication year 2021
Genre Autobiography / Memoir, Nonfiction
Themes Environment, Plants, Gender Identity, Community
Tags Science & Nature, Biography
Publication year 2023
Genre Book, Nonfiction
Themes Environment, Climate, Plants, Economics, Globalization, Politics & Government, Safety & Danger, Science & Technology, Truth & Lies
Tags Science & Nature, Climate Change, Natural Disaster, Politics & Government, World History
Publication year 2013
Genre Book, Nonfiction
Themes Death
Tags Crime & Law, Science & Nature, Journalism, World History, Health
Published in 2013, Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital is a work of nonfiction by American journalist Sheri Fink. The book, which takes place in August 2005, describes the struggle of staff and patients to survive when trapped in New Orleans’ Memorial Medical Center during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Lacking critical resources, the doctors make a drastic decision that will cause many patients to die via euthanasia. Five Days... Read Five Days at Memorial Summary
Publication year 2014
Genre Book, Nonfiction
Tags Business & Economics, Finance, Technology, Science & Nature, World History, Politics & Government, Biography
Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt is a 2014 economic nonfiction book by financial journalist Michael Lewis. Flash Boys investigates Wall Street’s desire to maximize profits and the ramifications of this profit-seeking behavior on the broader economy. Flash Boys follows investor Brad Katsuyama’s quest to establish the Investor’s Exchange (IEX) to mitigate the effects of High-Frequency Trading (HFT), a Wall Street profit-maximizing trading practice at the heart of Lewis’s investigation. Through Katsuyama’s story, Lewis explores... Read Flash Boys Summary
Publication year 1884
Genre Novella, Fiction
Themes Social Class, Science & Technology, Nature Versus Nurture, Gender Identity
Tags Satirical Literature, Science Fiction, Classic Fiction, Fantasy, Philosophy, Social Class, Gender & Feminism, British Literature, Victorian Period, Science & Nature, World History, Philosophy
IntroductionIn his introduction to Flatland: a Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), British mathematician Banesh Hoffmann describes the novel as “a stirring adventure in pure mathematics” and emphasizes the fundamentally fantastical nature of the story (iii). He also says that author Edwin A. Abbott intended the novel to be instructional. Both the surreal nature of Flatland and its didactic elements are plain, but there is disagreement among scholars and readers on the question of exactly what... Read Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions Summary
Publication year 2012
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Grief, Birth, Marriage, Mothers, Globalization, Environment
Tags Climate Change, Science & Nature, Modern Classic Fiction
Barbara Kingsolver’s 2012 novel Flight Behavior presents a symbolic connection between Dellarobia Turnbow, an unhappy farm wife who secretly dreams of running away from it all, and a surprising migration of monarch butterflies that alight upon her in-laws’ property in Feathertown, Tennessee. As the butterflies struggle to survive and reproduce to continue their species, Dellarobia struggles in her efforts to deal with the consequences of her past decisions and the possibility of her new life... Read Flight Behavior Summary
Publication year 1990
Genre Book, Nonfiction
Themes Conflict, Perseverance, Order & Chaos
Tags Self-Improvement, Science & Nature, Business & Economics, Psychology
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience is a work of popular psychology published in 1990 by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. The book challenges a fundamental cultural assumption: that material abundance and technological progress automatically produce happiness. Drawing on decades of empirical research involving over 100,000 participants worldwide, Csikszentmihalyi identifies the psychological conditions that enable genuine fulfillment—a state of complete immersion he calls “flow.” The book bridges academic psychology and everyday life, offering readers practical strategies for... Read Flow Summary
Publication year 2001
Genre Book, Nonfiction
Themes Economics, Science & Technology, Order & Chaos, Wins & Losses, Trust & Doubt
Tags Finance, Psychology, Philosophy, Self-Improvement, Business & Economics, Science & Nature, Psychology, Philosophy
Publication year 1983
Genre Reference/Text Book, Nonfiction
Themes Education, Childhood & Youth, Equality
Tags Psychology, Education, Science & Nature, Philosophy
Publication year 2005
Genre Book, Nonfiction
Themes Science & Technology, Social Class, Economics
Tags Business & Economics, Sociology, Science & Nature, Social Science, Psychology, Psychology, Politics & Government
Rarely does a book about economics attract a large audience, but Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything sold 4 million copies after its 2005 debut. The book, by University of Chicago professor Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner, explains how incentives—the reasons why people do things—can cause unusual and unexpected effects in many areas of life.Praised and reviled for its outside-the-box approach—the work was condemned for suggesting that liberalized abortion laws... Read Freakonomics Summary
Publication year 1999
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Environment, Coming of Age, Perseverance, Animals
Tags Action & Adventure, Animals, Children`s Literature, Science & Nature, Realistic Fiction, Classic Fiction
Publication year 2018
Genre Book, Nonfiction
Themes Death, Grief, Femininity, Self Discovery, Community
Tags Travel Literature, Grief & Death, Science & Nature, Anthropology, Sociology, History, Anthropology, World History
Publication year 2017
Genre Poem, Fiction
Themes Fear, Sexual Identity, Indigenous Identity, Plants, Friendship
Tags Free Verse, American Literature, Love & Sexuality, Science & Nature, LGBTQ+
Publication year 2012
Genre Autobiography / Memoir, Nonfiction
Themes Environment
Tags Journalism, Politics & Government, Science & Nature, World History, Health, Biography
Full Body Burden: Growing up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats is a 2012 nonfiction account by Kristen Iversen. Half memoir, half investigative journalism, the book covers Iversen’s life in a town near Denver, Colorado, as well as Rocky Flats—the nearby nuclear production facility. Quiet, observant, and adventurous, Iversen is the oldest of four children. The family keeps many pets, and Iversen adores horseback riding on their pasture at a new neighborhood near Rocky Flats... Read Full Body Burden Summary
Publication year 2017
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Race, Mothers, Future
Tags Science Fiction, Gender & Feminism, Religion & Spirituality, Science & Nature, Race & Racism, Fantasy
Future Home of the Living God is a 2017 speculative fiction novel by American author Louise Erdrich. Told by Cedar Hawk Songmaker, a pregnant Native American woman in her mid-twenties living in Minneapolis, the story consists of her reflections as she waits to give birth. In the novel’s pre-apocalyptic America, human evolution has reversed, meaning that the species has begun to biologically regress into an infertile state. Meanwhile, the United States government has undermined citizens’... Read Future Home of the Living God Summary
Publication year 2021
Genre Book, Nonfiction
Themes Environment, Animals, Death, Equality
Tags Science & Nature, Animals, Crime & Law, Humor, World History
Publication year 2015
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Environment, Friendship, Community, Fear, Food, Animals, Perseverance, Education, Globalization, Loneliness, Self Discovery, Future, Politics & Government, Science & Technology, Order & Chaos, Safety & Danger
Tags Science Fiction, Action & Adventure, Horror & Suspense, Survival Fiction, Natural Disaster, Science & Nature, Children`s Literature, Mystery & Crime Fiction, Realistic Fiction
In Newbery medalist Louis Sachar’s sci-fi thriller Fuzzy Mud (2015), Tamaya and Marshall cut through the restricted woods behind their school to avoid a bully—but encounter a strange mud that has the potential to destroy nearly all life on Earth. While Marshall struggles with the emotional effects of being bullied, Tamaya develops an unusually aggressive rash from the mud and worries that in protecting Marshall she has gravely injured Chad. Each character faces difficult ethical... Read Fuzzy Mud Summary
Publication year 2012
Genre Book, Nonfiction
Themes Community, Environment
Tags Business & Economics, Climate Change, Science & Nature, Social Science, Sociology, World History
Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash is a 2012 non-fiction book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes. Garbology is an analysis of American consumption, trash production, and what happens to everything in our disposable economy after we discard it. Through statistical analysis, interviews, and personal stories, Humes tells the story of our largest export—our trash—and how trash came to be synonymous with American life.Humes divides Garbology into three sections: first, an analysis of our... Read Garbology Summary
Publication year 2003
Genre Essay Collection, Nonfiction
Themes Plants, Environment, Place, Science & Technology, Indigenous Identity
Tags Science & Nature, Biology
Publication year 2007
Genre Book, Nonfiction
Themes Space, Childhood & Youth, Self Discovery, Science & Technology
Tags Science & Nature, Children`s Literature, Action & Adventure