Eating Animals is a nonfiction book written by Jonathan Safran Foer and published originally in 2009. Foer is an accomplished novelist, and Eating Animals is his first foray into long-form nonfiction writing. The book fits into a genre of criticism of the food industry, specifically factory farming and animal welfare. Eating Animals is a New York Times bestseller, though it met with mixed reviews regarding both the content and style of Foer’s writing. In 2018... Read Eating Animals Summary

Eat to Beat Disease: The New Science of How Your Body Can Heal Itself by William W. Li, MD, was first published in 2019. Dr. Li is a physician and researcher with expertise in angiogenesis (the process by which new blood vessels are formed) and preventive medicine. In this book, he presents scientific findings that demonstrate how specific foods can activate the body’s natural defense systems to prevent and combat disease. Drawing on clinical studies... Read Eat to Beat Disease Summary

Ezekiel J. Emanuel’s Eat Your Ice Cream: Six Simple Rules for a Long and Healthy Life (2026) is a work of nonfiction in the health and wellness genre that challenges modern society’s fixation on longevity. Emanuel, a physician and public-health expert, argues that the contemporary “wellness industrial complex” bombards people with confusing, expensive, and often unproven advice (5), turning the pursuit of health into what he characterizes as a joyless, anxiety-inducing task. He proposes a... Read Eat Your Ice Cream Summary

Empire of Pain is a 2021 work of narrative nonfiction about the origins of the social crisis around opioid use disorder by investigative journalist and writer Patrick Radden Keefe. A staff writer for The New Yorker, Radden Keefe is also the author of Say Nothing, an account of murder and sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, and The Snakehead, a 2009 narrative nonfiction work about Chinatown, immigration, and organized crime.To explain how opioids became widely prescribed... Read Empire of Pain Summary

Enlightenment Now is a 2018 nonfiction book by Canadian anthropologist and linguist Steven Pinker. Pinker holds that Enlightenment-era values—namely reason, humanism, and science—are underappreciated and that those who believe in a free, liberal society should defend them. He argues persuasively that the pessimism prevalent in modern society and political discourse is largely unfounded—and that this cynicism results from ignorance of the impressive progress in human rights, safety, health, governance, and technology of the last several... Read Enlightenment Now Summary

Enough: Your Health, Your Weight, and What It’s Like to Be Free (2026) is a book about obesity and weight loss written by Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Ania Jastreboff. Winfrey provides insight into her own personal experience of struggling to maintain her desired weight and how her perspective on obesity has changed over time. Meanwhile, Dr. Jastreboff, a Yale obesity specialist, explains the role that human biology plays in creating obesity, arguing that obesity should... Read Enough Summary

Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution is an evolutionary science nonfiction book by scientist Cat Bohannon and was published by Knopf, Borzoi Books, a division of Penguin Random House, in 2023. The book explores the female contributions to human evolution and the female ancestors linked to the development of various human traits, including breasts and milk, uteri and pregnancy, perception, bipedalism, toolmaking, brain development, language and voice, menopause, and... Read Eve Summary

Every Note Played is a 2018 novel by neuroscientist Lisa Genova. The novel follows the life of a concert pianist who is diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and must give up his performing career as a result; it also follows the personal impacts of his diagnosis on his relationships with his ex-wife and daughter.This guide refers to the 2018 Scout Press edition.Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss themes of the progression... Read Every Note Played Summary

Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved (2018) is Kate Bowler’s memoir of the events surrounding her diagnosis with Stage IV colorectal cancer. The title comes from an expression used by many adherents of the prosperity gospel, a set of theological beliefs centered on the idea that God interacts individually with believers, showering blessings upon those who grow in their faith while withholding abundance from those whose faith is lacking. Prior to... Read Everything Happens for a Reason Summary

Published in 2025, Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection is a popular science book by American author John Green. Best known for young adult novels like The Fault in Our Stars, Green uses a blend of medical history, cultural history, and nonfiction narrative to bring awareness to the crisis of tuberculosis (TB) in the 21st century. Green is a public advocate for global health and became interested in issues related... Read Everything Is Tuberculosis Summary

Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong—and What You Really Need to Know (2013) by Emily Oster is a data-driven pregnancy guide that challenges common medical advice through the lens of economics and statistical analysis. Written for pregnant individuals and their partners, especially those overwhelmed by conflicting guidance, this book invites readers to rethink conventional wisdom by examining the actual evidence behind it. Oster, a professor of economics at Brown University, applies decision-making... Read Expecting Better Summary

IntroductionFast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal is a 2001 nonfiction book by Eric Schlosser that investigates the business practices of the American fast food industry and the associated agricultural industries that supply it. Following the precedent of Upton Sinclair’s famous 1906 work The Jungle, Schlosser provides readers with a glimpse into the questionable ethics of these large food corporations. Schlosser likewise provides brief historical accounts of fast food’s origins and traces... Read Fast Food Nation Summary

Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Recreate Race in the Twenty-First Century was written by Dorothy Roberts and published by the New Press in 2011. In addition to Fatal Invention, Roberts is the author of Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare (2002) and Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (1997). Fatal Invention was named one of the 10 best Black nonfiction books of 2011 by AFRO.com. Roberts... Read Fatal Invention Summary

Allice Elliott Dark’s Fellowship Point (2022) begins as an elderly woman’s quest to protect the Maine peninsula she loves (Fellowship Point) from development. As the novel unfolds, it showcases the friendship between this woman (Agnes Lee) and her lifelong companion (Polly Wister), who have spent summers together on the Point since their childhood. Coming of age at a time when roles for women were limiting, Agnes and Polly have taken separate paths but remained intensely... Read Fellowship Point Summary

John Edgar Wideman’s “Fever” is a retelling of the yellow fever epidemic that struck Philadelphia in 1793 and the title story of his 1989 collection, Fever: Twelve Stories (Penguin Publishing Group), on which this guide is based. The story advances one of Wideman’s broader goals as an author: to correct the historical record to include the voices, experiences, and contributions of African Americans. This piece is Wideman’s second endeavor to represent the history of Philadelphia... Read Fever Summary

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

Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States is a 2013 academic book by Seth M. Holmes, an American physician with a PhD in Medical Anthropology. The book is the product of 18 months of fieldwork in Mexico and the US. It combines ethnographic field notes, transcripts from interviews, and anthropological theory to analyze the impact of US border policies on Triqui migrants, Indigenous Mexicans from the State of Oaxaca. The author explores... Read Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies Summary

From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life is a nonfiction book by Arthur Brooks (2022). It was a New York Times #1 bestseller for several months. ­­In 2019, Brooks became a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School. For a decade before that, he was the president of the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington, DC, that research issues in economics... Read From Strength to Strength Summary

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

Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness is a 1990 self-help book by American author and professor Jon Kabat-Zinn. In his work Kabat-Zinn explains his program of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), which is a series of meditative practices he designed to help people cope with stress and develop an awareness of and appreciation for the present moment. Inspired by the Buddhist traditions, the author felt... Read Full Catastrophe Living Summary