Siddhartha Mukherjee’s book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, is nothing less than an account of the 4,000-year quest to understand and treat cancer, a malady that continues to plague us over the centuries. Mukherjee, an Indian-American oncologist and author, received a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for the 2010 work. The autobiography opens with Mukherjee’s fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he treats a 31-year-old mother named Carla Reed, who has... Read The Emperor of All Maladies Summary

Published in 2009, Jacqueline Kelly’s The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate is a middle grade novel that follows the life of a young Calpurnia as she explores her love for science in the highly patriarchal society that dominated Texas in the late 19th century. The novel received praise from both readers and critics for its thematic emphasis on discovery and personal growth, earning it the Newbery Honor Award in 2010. This guide refers to the 2011... Read The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate Summary

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The Feather Thief by American author, screenwriter, and journalist Kirk Wallace Johnson is about the 2009 heist of the British Natural History Museum at Tring. It retraces the background of the 20-year-old American thief, professional flautist, and master fly-tier, Edwin Rist, who stole 299 rare bird skins from the museum. Johnson first heard about the heist while fly-fishing on a river in New Mexico. Living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after years of aid work... Read The Feather Thief Summary

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In The Forest People, anthropologist Colin M. Turnbull describes his experiences while living as a friend and observer with the BaMbuti (Pygmies) of the Ituri Forest. He shares the everyday lives of the Pygmies located in the Epulu River region and their interactions with each other and with him. The setting is the Belgian Congo, which Turnbull describes as located in the center of Africa. Turnbull had visited the Epulu BaMbuti in 1951. This narrative... Read The Forest People Summary

Joe Haldeman’s science fiction novel The Forever War was published in 1974 and is considered a classic of the genre: Along with Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, The Forever War invented the science fiction war novel. It won the 1975 Nebula Award as well as the 1976 Hugo and Locus awards. Haldeman, a veteran of the Vietnam War and a Purple Heart recipient, infuses his firsthand knowledge of war and military protocols into his futuristic setting... Read The Forever War Summary

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The Future of an Illusion is a 1927 book by Sigmund Freud in which the Austrian neurologist investigates the origins of society and religion. Freud is well-known as the founder of psychoanalysis, a discipline that he developed in the late 1800s that seeks to use talk therapy to help patients cure their mental disorders. Freud wrote a number of influential books that popularized his psychoanalytic theories, such as The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) and The... Read The Future of an Illusion Summary

The Future of Life is a 2002 non-fiction book of popular science by the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and biologist Edward O. Wilson. In the book, Wilson draws on his decades of experience as a biologist of invertebrates, as well as his years spent advocating for conservation causes, to paint a picture of the threat people pose to the world’s biodiversity and to suggest ways that humanity can change course. The book is structured as... Read The Future of Life Summary

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In his short story “The Garden of Forking Paths,” Jorge Luis Borges uses the metaphor of the labyrinth to suggest the presence of infinite possible realities. First published in 1941 under the Spanish title “El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan,” the story reflects new modes of thought and expression, ranging from developments in quantum mechanics to the advent of detective thrillers. A spy mystery, a philosophical puzzle, and a mythic history all in one... Read The Garden of Forking Paths Summary

The Gay Science is a book of poems and collection of 383 aphorisms in five sections that interrogates the origins of the history of knowledge. It celebrates philosophy as a medicine capable of renewing the intellect, and perceives of philosophy as inspiration for individual freedom, and thereby capable of renewing culture. First published in 1882, Nietzsche added a “Book Fifth” to The Gay Science five years later.In The Gay Science, Nietzsche declares God is dead... Read The Gay Science Summary

In 2009, New York Times bestselling author Alexandra Robbins returned with The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School. The nonfiction book, which unconventionally flows like a YA novel, takes us inside the corridors of the nation’s schools to look at what popularity really means, and why it is so important to young people. Grounded in the latest social science, Robbins’ bestseller tracks the lives of young... Read The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth Summary

The Gene: An Intimate History (2016) by Siddhartha Mukherjee weaves a family narrative with the tale of the evolution of genetics. Informed by Mukherjee’s experience as an oncologist and researcher, the book showcases both the life-changing potential, as well as danger, of gene-editing technologies. Mukherjee uses the cautionary tale of eugenics to examine what the power to change the genetic structure of human beings means in a fraught, fragmented world. Refuting notions such as biological... Read The Gene Summary

In his 2008 nonfiction book The Geography of Bliss, Eric Weiner travels the world in search of happiness. Weiner, a former foreign correspondent for National Public Radio, sets out in this travelogue to investigate where in the world people are the most happy—and why. Casting himself as an inveterately cranky person, Weiner mixes humor, scientific inquiry, and psychological research to explain geographic concentrations of elevated mood. Since its publication, the book has been on the... Read The Geography of Bliss Summary

The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World is a nonfiction book by Steven Johnson. It was published in 2006 and was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times and a Best Book of the Year by Library Journal and Entertainment Weekly.The immediate subject of The Ghost Map is the cholera outbreak that took place in London in 1854... Read The Ghost Map Summary

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