The Weekly Reading, #9: Nonfiction for Summer
Featuring Candice Millard, Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Gabrielle Stanley Blair.
I know what you’re thinking: Samantha took a week off, and now she’s coming back and trying to convince me to read *nonfiction* in the summer? What the actual eff?
If you prefer not to read nonfiction ever, this edition of the newsletter is not for you. However, if you have a list of nonfic titles and you’re just waiting to be “in the right mood,” or if you’re nonfic-curious but not sure where to start, welcome, and allow me to suggest one small reading-life change:
Read nonfiction in the summer.
Summer is, famously, synonymous with beach reads, and I’m no stranger to flying through a breezy romance while sitting poolside. But stay with me here: summer usually means (if we’re lucky) longer stretches of free time in a relaxing setting. What better time to tackle dense subject matter that requires some focus?
I just read that back. “Dense subject matter that requires focus” isn’t exactly the most appealing sentence ever written. But trust me with these picks!
This Week’s Book Recommendations
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard
Be the cool kid who actually knows something about President Garfield.
In general you can’t go wrong with Candice Millard. Her writing style is propulsive, and she gives her subject matter that fiction-y, plot-y movement you want if you’re not sure you can get into nonfiction. I knew absolutely nothing about President James Garfield when I picked this up, but I was quickly fascinated by Millard’s exploration of his ascendancy and how the doctors “treated” him after he was shot. (P.S. Her books make great book club picks, too.)
The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Come for the science, stay for the compassion for your fellow humans.
This is the book that started me on the whole “nonfiction for summer” gig. The Gene is a lengthy, but thoroughly engaging, biography of the building blocks of humanity. It’s also an impassioned meditation on how difference is essential for our species’ survival. In my opinion, it is even more relevant now than it was when it was first written.
Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion by Gabrielle Stanley Blair
Feeling fired up?
I have and will continue to sing the praises of this brief and spectacular book, mostly because I don’t really hear about the people who should be reading it (cis men) actually picking it up. But if you’ve ever asked yourself, “Why, when men are fertile 24/7 for their whole lives, is the burden of birth control on women, who are only fertile once per month for a finite number of years?”, then this indeed is the book for you. Do us all a favor and force a man in your life to read it.
One Fun Thing
I won a Storygraph book giveaway, and it arrived yesterday! So exciting! If you know me in real life you’ve heard me wax poetic about The Storygraph, the reading tracker app with which I finally replaced Goodreads a few years ago. If you just need to track your books, Storygraph has a clean, minimal UI you’ll love; if you want to get fancier, you can explore your reading data through fun charts, end-of-year wrap-ups, and more. Plus you can import all your Goodreads data so you don’t lose anything. Bye-bye, sad, Amazon-owned app that is full of ads and has not been updated in years. 👋