Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey (1999) is a piece of autobiographical and environmental writing by Jane Goodall. The text traces episodes from her personal life while delving into more philosophical and spiritual subject matter. Goodall’s anecdotes from her childhood through her late adulthood fuel her thematic explorations of Reconciling Faith, Morality, and Scientific Discovery, Overcoming Grief, Fear, and Despair, and Compassion and Hope as Resistance to Violence.Goodall (1934-2025) was known for her anthropological, ethnological... Read Reason for Hope Summary

Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age (2015) is a non-fiction work by Sherry Turkle. A clinical psychologist and professor of Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT, Turkle specializes in human-technology interaction and has decades of experience writing on technology’s problematic effects on human connection. In Reclaiming Conversation, the book’s premise is in the title: Turkle believes that technology has detrimentally taken over human conversation and that we ought to... Read Reclaiming Conversation Summary

Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard (Harper Teen, 2015) is the first book in the Red Queen series, which follows one girl’s battle to bring equality to her people in a dystopian fantasy world where the power hungry Silvers oppress the lower Red class. The book won the 2015 Goodreads Choice Award for Debut Goodreads Author and was nominated for the 2015 Goodreads Choice Award for Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction. New York Times bestselling... Read Red Queen Summary

... Read Remember Summary

Riddley Walker (1980) is a dystopian science fiction novel by Russell Hoban. The novel is famous for its use of a phonetic, idiosyncratic version of English, spoken by the characters who live in a post-apocalyptic society. Riddley Walker won numerous awards, including the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1981.Plot SummaryA young boy named Riddley Walker lives in Inland, the name given to the south of England 2,000 years after a nuclear war sent human... Read Riddley Walker Summary

... Read Rising Summary

... Read River of the Gods Summary

Ruin and Rising is the third and final book in Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone trilogy of young adult fantasy adventure/romance novels. Ruin and Rising was originally published in 2014. Bardugo has written 12 novels as of 2021, many of which are set in the “GrishaVerse” world first portrayed in the novel Shadow and Bone. The Shadow and Bone trilogy, combined with Bardugo’s Six of Crows duology, has been adapted as a television miniseries. Before... Read Ruin and Rising Summary

... Read Running with Sherman Summary

Salt Sugar Fat is a 2013 nonfiction book by Michael Moss. It describes the modern American food industry. The author visits the corporate headquarters, scientific research facilities, and marketing departments of major food manufacturers. He also talks with consumer advocates and other involved parties to understand the ongoing obesity epidemic.Through industrial processes, food companies remove nutritious components and substitute cheaper, harmful ingredients. The key ingredients in most processed foods are salt, sugar, and fat. Manufacturers... Read Salt Sugar Fat Summary

First published in Hebrew in 2011, with the English translation following in 2014, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind examining the shaping of human history. Israeli author Yuval Noah Harari shines a light, sometimes harshly, on how humans have exploited the ideas of capitalism, religion, and politics to control the globe and put the species Homo sapiens on the threshold of banishing natural selection. Sapiens landed on the New York Times best-seller list and won... Read Sapiens Summary

... Read Scarcity Brain Summary

... Read Scarcity Summary

... Read Scattered Minds Summary

... Read Science and Human Behavior Summary

... Read See How the Roses Burn! Summary

Shadow Divers: The True Story of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II (2004) by Robert Kurson is a celebrated nonfiction adventure book. Kurson, an adventure journalist whose stories have been featured in Rolling Stone, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine, is known for his immersive and entertaining style. His first book-length work, Shadow Divers was a New York Times Best Seller and won the... Read Shadow Divers Summary

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring is widely regarded as a foundational text of the 20th century environmental movement. Originally published as a series in The New Yorker, Carson’s essays carefully articulate the impacts of widespread chemical use for insect and plant control. Throughout the text, Carson emphasizes the ways that humans disregard the interrelation of species on earth, and argues that as a result, humans are at a pivotal moment. If methods of insect control are... Read Silent Spring Summary

... Read Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor Summary

... Read Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory Summary