Essential quarantine reading: Contemporary nonfiction by women

Skloot tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, a black woman whose cells (dubbed HeLa cells) were cultured without her permission, and which were the first human cells to reproduce in a lab. HeLa cells were used for the development of vaccines, drug treatments, gene mapping, and were even sent to space, and Skloot recounts their journey along with shining a light on racism and ethics in science.

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Yeonmi Park, 'In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom' -

This memoir tells the story of how Park escaped from North Korea, running from the threats of starvation, disease, and execution, towards a freedom she knew nothing about.

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Scaachi Koul, 'One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter' -

Koul's debut essay collection centers on her experience growing up as a second generation Indian immigrant, and a woman of color in the West, but with rollicking laughs along the way.

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Janet Mock, 'Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me' -

Author and activist Janet Mock recounted her childhood, being a poor, multiracial, trans kid, in 2014's 'Redefining Realness,' and three years later wrote this memoir recounting her stint as a stripper, her first-generation college experience, her move to New York, and her start in journalism.

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Elizabeth Kolbert, 'The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History' -

This Pulitzer-prize-winning book offers a simple scientific fact: there have been five mass extinctions in the history of the planet, and soon there will be six. It's a heavy look at humanity, but done delicately–poetically even.

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Sonali Deraniyagala, 'Wave' -

Sri Lankan writer Sonali Deraniyagala lost her parents, husband, and son to a devastating tsunami, and recounts in heartbreaking and enlightening reflection on how she survived the lifelong aftermath. She's pictured here on the left, beside her wife, well-known actress Fiona Shaw.

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Rebecca Traister, 'All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation' -

This book draws on interviews from dozens of women of varying backgrounds, and their firsthand accounts are a portrait of life amid a historic shift toward female autonomy. It examines the history of unmarried women as a social and political force, highlights the networks of social support that women have created in order to survive patriarchy and establish lifestyles that did not depend on it.

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 'We Should All Be Feminists' -

This book-length essay by famous Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is part of the feminist cannon now, and provides an important modern definition for the 21st century.

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Jenny Odell, 'How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy' -

A New York Times best seller, this insightful book starts off like self-help but become a complex, witty, and ambitious political commentary that sheds light on the habits many of us don't know we have.

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Maggie Nelson, 'The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning' -

This landmark study on the role of cruelty and violence in art has been compared to the writings of Susan Sontag and Elaine Scarry, positioning Nelson as an important cultural critic.

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Alana Massey, 'All The Lives I Want: Essays About My Best Friends Who Happen to Be Famous Strangers' -

The title of this essay collection comes from a Sylvia Plath quote (“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want"). Massey explores the lives she wants, of famous and infamous women, mixing in some personal anecdotes and insights on celebrity fascination.

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Jill Lepore, 'The Secret History of Wonder Woman' -

Historian and feminist Jill Lepore traces the history of the beloved Amazonian heroine, asking tough questions about feminism and recounting the creator's stories of sexual promiscuity, polyamory, and more.

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Rebecca Solnit, 'Men Explain Things to Me' -

In her collection of seven essays, Solnit acutely and hilariously breaks down the things that so often go wrong in the conversations between men and women.

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Samantha Irby, 'We Are Never Meeting in Real Life' -

This New York Times best seller essay collection, from a celebrated foul-mouthed blogger, promises tales like Irby's pitch for herself as the “Bachelorette,” a trip to Nashville to scatter her estranged father's ashes, and more that'll have you laughing and crying with the flip of a page.

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Caroline Fraser, 'Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder' -

Fraser's Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Critics Circle Award-winning biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder (pictured) is a fantastic read even if you aren't familiar with the 'Little House on the Prairie' author.

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Temple Grandin, 'Thinking In Pictures' -

Grandin is an icon in the world of autism, pushing for visibility, representation, and education of autism. In this book, she recounts her difficult journey of growing up in a world that didn't yet understand autism.

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Maya Angelou, 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings' -

If you haven't read this immensely moving personal history of an almost unbelievable childhood, and how Angelou rose above it all, what have you been doing?

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Barbara Kingsolver, 'Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life' -

Food is an enormous part of our lives, and this memoir-investigation hybrid is a compelling and educational look at the food we tend to take for granted.

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Claire and Mia Fontaine, 'Come Back: A Mother and Daughter's Journey Through Hell and Back' -

Mother-daughter relationships are complicated as it is, but this mother-daughter joint memoir chronicles a tear-jerking experience of their relationship as it faced drug abuse, mental illness, separation, and, ultimately, recovery.

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Marya Hornbacher, 'Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia' -

This gripping memoir focuses unrelentingly on the body issues that haunt thousands of women around the world, as Hornbacher retells her own gritty struggle with eating disorders.

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Nora Ephron, 'I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman' -

The late famed filmmaker's collection of poignant and funny essays ruminates on the business of women getting older, and how their role shifts after 60. It was included in The Guardian's list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.

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Julie Yip-Williams, 'The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything That Comes After' -

A woman born blind in Vietnam tells the story of her struggle with cancer years later, after becoming a Harvard-educated lawyer with a family. Though Yip-Williams passed away in 2018, she is heralded for being the dying woman who reminded us how to live.

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Patti Smith, 'Just Kids' -

A memoir filled with friendships, young love, and self-discovery, which above all epitomizes youth using the singer's trademark lyrical prose and harsh clarity.

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Essential quarantine reading: Contemporary nonfiction by women

These book club gems will keep you entertained for days

07/04/21 | StarsInsider

LIFESTYLE What to read

Sometimes nonfiction gets a bad rap for being too mundane, but the fact is truth is often stranger than fiction! Nonfiction books are a whirlwind of drama, suspense, comedy, thrills, and romance, and the words hold more weight because they're true.

Now is a great time to catch up on some truly marvelous books from this century, which are sure to be on required reading lists for years to come. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll share them with your friends. Click through to refine your reading list.