Former ABC News correspondent Dan Harris wrote 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works—A True Story in 2014. The book is a self-help memoir that details Harris's personal mental health and spiritual journey. After extensively covering the war in Iraq from 2001 to 2003, Harris experienced a panic attack during a live broadcast of Good Morning America in the summer... Read 10% Happier Summary

13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do by Amy Morin, published in 2014, is a self-help guide that emerged from the author’s personal experiences with grief and her background as a psychotherapist. Morin defines mental strength as the capacity to regulate thoughts, emotions, and behaviors to act in alignment with one’s personal values despite adverse circumstances. She offers readers a framework built on cognitive-behavioral therapy principles rather than simple positive thinking. The book targets individuals... Read 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do Summary

Hattie Owen’s life changes the summer she turns 12 and meets the young uncle she never knew existed in Ann M. Martin’s middle-grade novel, A Corner of the Universe (2002). Uncle Adam has been kept a secret because of his mental problems. Adults have trouble handling his emotional extremes, but shy Hattie finds a true friend in her exuberant uncle. Adam teaches Hattie to explore life beyond the safety of her front porch. As Hattie... Read A Corner of the Universe Summary

A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution (2017) by Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg represents a pivotal contribution to public understanding of CRISPR gene-editing technology. Doudna, a biochemist at the University of California, Berkeley, helped pioneer CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology and received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work. Her co-author, Samuel H. Sternberg, conducted doctoral research in her laboratory and is now a professor at... Read A Crack in Creation Summary

Ernest Hemingway’s “A Day’s Wait” (published in 1933) is a brief yet poignant short story based on the real-life experience of Hemingway’s son, Jack. Although one of Hemingway’s shortest works, at a little over a thousand words, the story is frequently anthologized and is an excellent introduction to Hemingway’s themes and style. In particular, this piece examines themes like Heroic Fatalism, Bravery and Manliness, and Miscommunication and Lack of Communication.This guide refers to the version... Read A Day's Wait Summary

ADHD 2.0: New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—from Childhood Through Adulthood by Dr. Edward Hallowell and Dr. John J. Ratey provides an exploration of ADHD that blends the latest scientific insights with practical strategies for managing this complex condition. First published in 2021, this work builds on the authors’ decades of experience as leading experts in psychiatry and ADHD treatment— Hallowell’s and Ratey’s earlier collaborations, such as Driven to Distraction, have been... Read ADHD 2.0 Summary

After Ever After is a young adult novel written by American author Jordan Sonnenblick and published in 2010. It is the sequel to Sonnenblick’s debut novel, Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, which came out in 2004 but focused on a different protagonist. While the first book revolves around Steven Alper, After Ever After explores his younger brother Jeff’s perspective as he navigates eighth grade alongside his best friend, Tad, and his girlfriend, Lindsey. Sonnenblick, who... Read After Ever After Summary

Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year was first published in 1722. The novel is written in the first-person and chronicles the spread of the bubonic plague in London in 1665. While the first-person narration and abundant historical detail result in a text that feels like—and masquerades as—nonfiction, Defoe was only 5 years old at the time of the events, while the narrator is an adult man living on his own in London. Despite... Read A Journal Of The Plague Year Summary

Allergic is a middle-grade graphic novel written by Megan Wagner Lloyd and illustrated by Michelle Mee Nutter. It was published in 2021 by Scholastic and is a work of realistic fiction. Lloyd has written numerous picture books for children, while Nutter’s work has been recognized by numerous groups including the Society of Illustrators. This book tells the story of a fifth-grade girl who wants nothing more than to adopt a puppy, but when she and... Read Allergic Summary

A Mango-Shaped Space is a 2003 middle-grade novel by American author Wendy Mass. It tells the story of Mia Winchell, a 13-year-old girl living in Illinois in the early 2000s. Mia has a secret. She associates all letters and numbers with distinct colors, and when she hears sounds, she sees bursts of color across her field of vision. It turns out that Mia has synesthesia, an uncommon but harmless neurological condition where an individual’s senses... Read A Mango-Shaped Space Summary

A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on her Diary, 1785-1812 is a 1990 nonfiction biography of midwife Martha Ballard by American historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Using Martha Ballard’s diary as a primary source, Ulrich utilizes a microhistorical approach to evaluate the life of Ballard, the history of Maine’s Kennebec River region, and the themes of social medicine, women’s role in the economy, and religion’s place in everyday life. A Midwife’s Tale won... Read A Midwife's Tale Summary

Published in 2003, Jim Murphy’s An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 is a historical nonfiction book for young adults that provides a detailed look into Philadelphia’s yellow fever epidemic of 1793. As Murphy documents how yellow fever emerged and spread throughout the city, he demonstrates how society operated in what was then the nation’s capital and largest city in the late 1700s. He focuses on urban... Read An American Plague Summary

An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back is physician and journalist Elisabeth Rosenthal’s overview and critique of the American healthcare system. It was initially published in April 2017, arriving during a time in which healthcare reform became a prominent cornerstone of both Democratic and Republican political campaigns. The book offers a mixture of testimonials from a myriad of people impacted by the health industry, including medical professionals... Read An American Sickness Summary

An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales is a narrative nonfiction essay collection by Oliver Sacks originally published in 1995. Sacks documents and comments upon seven patients with neurological conditions that challenge preconceived notions about illness, disorder, adaptation, and self-perception. This collection builds upon Sacks’s previous works featuring neurological case studies, including the critically acclaimed The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.Oliver Sacks, M.D. was an author, medical historian, neurologist, and professor of... Read An Anthropologist on Mars Summary

And The Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic is a work of investigative reporting by Randy Shilts, a reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle. Shilts covered the AIDS epidemic from 1982 for the only newspaper willing to give its full attention to the epidemic. Shilts examines the roots of AIDS beginning in 1976 to two events and focuses on the mysterious illness of a Danish physician working in Africa, Dr. Grethe Rask. Before... Read And The Band Played On Summary

An Enemy of the People (1950) by Arthur Miller is an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 realist drama, also titled An Enemy of the People, into a tightened, American-stage-friendly version. It follows Dr. Thomas Stockmann, who discovers that his town’s lucrative public baths are contaminated and likely making visitors sick. When civic leaders insist that his findings be suppressed to avoid economic fallout, the doctor’s whistleblowing attempts to publish and speak openly trigger a rapid... Read An Enemy of the People Summary

An Unquiet Mind, written by Kay Redfield Jamison and first published in 1995, is a memoir about a clinical psychologist’s experience living with manic-depressive illness. The book details her life, from her early experiences as a child, through the beginning of her mood swings, her diagnosis of manic-depressive illness, her struggles with the disease, and her eventual management of and control over it, following years of therapy and medication. Aside from having experienced it, Jamison... Read An Unquiet Mind Summary

John Colapinto’s 1999 book As Nature Made Him is an expansion of his award-winning 1997 Rolling Stone article on the medical scandal surrounding David Reimer. David, raised as Brenda under the auspices of famous sexologist and child psychiatrist Dr. John Money, transitions back to a male gender identity during his teenage years. After Dr. Milton Diamond reveals the failure of Money’s theory of gender neutrality at birth, David’s story raises serious questions in the medical... Read As Nature Made Him Summary

Published in 2019, Jodi Picoult’s novel A Spark of Light tells the story of a gunman’s attack on an abortion clinic from multiple points of view, examining the lives of different characters and the events that lead them to the clinic on that day. Picoult is a New York Times best-selling author and has written 28 novels, several of which have been adapted for film and television. Her books are known for tackling social issues... Read A Spark of Light Summary

Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart, published by Random House in 2021, is a self-help book subtitled “Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience.” Brown defines and explores over 80 different emotions and experiences gathered from her work as a grounded theory emotions researcher. Using her own research and extensive research from others, she defines each emotion/experience and often contrasts it with others. Brown believes that having this nuanced language helps the reader... Read Atlas of the Heart Summary