Gender: A Graphic Guide

Gender: A Graphic Guide is a great teaching tool and resource.

In this illustrated guide, Meg-John Barker and Jules Scheele travel through our shifting understandings of gender across time and space – from ideas about masculinity and femininity, to non-binary and trans genders, to intersecting experiences of gender, race, sexuality, class, disability and more. 

Tackling current debates and tensions, which can divide communities and even cost lives, Barker and Scheele look to the past and the future to explore how we might all approach gender in more caring and celebratory ways.

 Is masculinity ‘toxic’? Why are public toilets such a political issue? How has feminism changed the available gender roles – and for whom? Why might we all benefit from challenging binary thinking about sex/gender?

Barker, Meg-John & Jules Scheele. (2019). Gender: A Graphic Guide. New York: Icon.

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson is a master class in riveting storytelling, as well as an important event in world history. 

On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack.

 Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.

It is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love.

If you have any interest in history, look to Erik Larson first! He is an amazing writer who brings history alive. 

Larson, Erik. (2015). Dead Wake. New York: Crown Publishing.

Flamboyants: The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I'd Known

Flamboyants: The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I'd Known by George M. Johnson

In Flamboyants, George M. Johnson celebrates writers, performers, and activists from 1920s Black America whose sexualities have been obscured throughout history. Through 14 essays, Johnson reveals how American culture has been shaped by icons who are both Black and Queer – and whose stories deserve to be celebrated in their entirety.

Interspersed with personal narrative, powerful poetry, and illustrations by award-winning illustrator Charly Palmer, Flamboyants looks to the past for understanding as to how Black and Queer culture has defined the present and will continue to impact the future. With candid prose and an unflinching lens towards truth and hope, George M. Johnson brings young adult readers an inspiring collection of biographies that will encourage teens today to be unabashed in their layered identities.

Great book! Should be in every library collection.

Johnson, George M. (2024). Flamboyants. New York: Farrar Strauss. 

So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color

So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color by Caro de Robertis is a book queer folks have been waiting for!

So Many Stars knits together the voices of trans, nonbinary, genderqueer, and two-spirit elders of color as they share authentic, intimate accounts of how they created space for themselves and their communities in the world. This singular project collects the testimonies of twenty elders, each a glimmering thread in a luminous tapestry, preserving their words for future generations—who can more fully exist in the world today because of these very trailblazers.

De Robertis creates a collective coming-of-age story based on hundreds of hours of interviews, offering rare snapshots of ordinary life: kids growing up, navigating family issues and finding community, coming out and changing how they identify over the years, building movements and weathering the AIDS crisis, and sharing wisdom for future generations. Often narrating experiences that took place before they had the array of language that exists today to self-identify beyond the gender binary, this generation lived through remarkable changes in American culture, shaped American culture, and yet rarely takes center stage in the history books. Their stories feel particularly urgent in the current political moment, but also remind readers that their experiences are not new, and that young trans and nonbinary people today belong to a long lineage.

de Robertis, Caro. (2025). So Many Stars. New York: Algonquin Books.

Thunder Songs: Essays

Thunder Songs: Essays by Sasha LaPointe is a collection of biographical stories on what it means to her to be a proud, queer Indigenous woman.

Drawing on a rich family archive as well as the anthropological work of her late great-grandmother, Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe explores themes ranging from Indigenous identity and stereotypes to cultural displacement and environmental degradation to understand what our experiences teach us about the power of community, commitment, and conscientious honesty.

Unapologetically punk, the essays in Thunder Song segue from the miraculous to the mundane, from the spiritual to the physical, as they examine the role of art—in particular music—and community in helping a new generation of Indigenous people claim the strength of their heritage while defining their own path in the contemporary world.

This is an important book for anyone living on stolen lands - which is most of us in the US.

LaPointe, Sasha. (2024). Thunder Songs: Essays. Berkeley: Counterpoint.

We Will Be Jaguars

We Will Be Jaguars by Nemonte Nenquimo is the true story of indigenous tribes banning together to save part of the Amazon from foreign oil interests. 

Born into the Waorani tribe of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest—one of the last to be contacted by missionaries in the 1950s—Nemonte Nenquimo had a singular upbringing.

She was taught about plant medicines, foraging, oral storytelling, and shamanism by her elders. At age fourteen, she left the forest for the first time to study with an evangelical missionary group in the city. Eventually, her ancestors began appearing in her dreams, pleading with her to return and embrace her own culture. She listened.

Two decades later, Nemonte has emerged as one of the most forceful voices in climate change activism. She has spearheaded the alliance of indigenous nations across the Upper Amazon and led her people to a landmark victory against Big Oil, protecting over a half million acres of primary rainforest. Her message is as sharp as a spear—honed by her experiences battling loggers, miners, oil companies and missionaries.

In We Will Be Jaguars, she partners with her husband, Mitch Anderson, founder of Amazon Frontlines, digging into generations of oral history, uprooting centuries of conquest, hacking away at racist notions of indigenous peoples, and ultimately revealing a life story as rich, harsh, and vital as the Amazon rainforest herself. [from Abrams Press]

This is an amazing book.

Nenquimo, Nemonte. (2024) We Will Be Jaguars. New York: Abrams Press.

Bitch: On the Female of the Species

Bitch: On the Female of the Species by Lucy Cooke is an update to Darwin's Victorian view for biology across species.

Cooke, a well-known science writer spent two years interviewing biologists in many, many fields across the fauna of our planet. Building on some of these scientists, Cooke has created an overview of the errors of Charles Darwin - looking at the male of the species as the only factor while also ignoring any animals who did not fit his view of the sexes.

Fans of Mary Roach and Bill Bryson who love animals will adore this book. Cooke presents science for the lay reader with care and humor. 

Read this book if you live on the planet Earth.

Cooke, Lucy. (2023). Bitch: On the Female of the Species. New York; Basic Books.

The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Earth's Past Mass Extinctions

The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Earth's Past Mass Extinctions by Peter Brannen tells the history of our planet from the End-Ordovician to the present, exploring the causes of the five mass extinctions that have occurred on Earth.

This book is a fascinating look at the life on our planet from the beginning. With each extinction event, different species developed or sometimes grew exponentially in size. From single celled organisms to life in the oceans and on land, to the dinosaurs to humans, this is a great books. Both filled with information and easy to read. 

If you live on this planet, this book is for you. 

Brannen, Peter. (2017). The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Earth's Past Mass Extinctions. New York: Ecco.

Into the Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver

Into the Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver by Jill Heinerth is a spooky exploration into the most dangerous thing you can do on Earth!

I have always been equal parts fascinated and scared of caves. Imaging exploring on underwater!

From Penguin Random House:

As one of the most celebrated cave divers in the world, Jill Heinerth has seen the planet in a way almost no one has. In a workday, she might swim below your home, through conduits in volcanoes or cracks in the world's largest iceberg. She's an explorer, a scientist's eyes and hands underwater—discovering new species and examining our finite freshwater reserves—and a filmmaker documenting the wonders of underwater life. Often the lone woman in a male-dominated domain, she tests the limits of human endurance at every tight turn, risking her life with each mission. To not only survive in this world but excel, Jill has had to learn how to master self-doubt like no other.

Heinerth, Jill. (2019). Into the Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver. New York: Ecco. 

How the Sea Came to Be: And All the Creatures In It

How the Sea Came to Be: And All the Creatures In It by Jennifer Berne, illustrated by Amanda Hall, is a gorgeous nonfiction picture book about how the Earth and life began.

Information and illustrations from before the Earth cooled to our current ocean dwellers, the science book is a delight. 

How the Sea Came to Be is the perfect introduction to Earth Science. Plus you will want to recreate the drawings as wallpaper!

Berne, Jennifer. (2023). How the Sea Came to Be: And All the Creatures in It. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers.

Chinese Menu: The History, Myths and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods

Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods by Grace Lin is a feast for your eyes and will have you craving Chinese food as you read.

Tea, Eggrolls, Rice, General Tso's Chicken, Peking Duck, Chopsticks and more, all have a story of how they were developed or refined. With folk tales and family stories, Grace Lin walks us through centuries of Chinese history in this beautiful book. 

This books should be part of each library collection, to be enjoyed by children and adults alike. 

Lin, Grace. (2023). Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

You Just Need to Lose Weight and 19 Other Myths About Fat People

You Just Need to Lose Weight and 19 Other Myths About Fat People by the brilliant Aubrey Gordon is a book for everyone to read.

We live in a world of social and systematic anti-fat bias. In this book Gordon debunks the ideas that have helped to create this body of myths.

Broken into easy to digest bits that make up the false logic that our institutions base their policies on, this book will make you think about your biases. From using the BMI as a measure of health (it was a survey of the people in Norway and was never meant to be diagnostic or related to health - until insurance companies started using it to raise rates), to the idea that skinny is healthier, this breakdown of how we got here is easy to read and eye opening. 

Also check out Aubrey Gordon's podcast, Maintenance Phase, for a very entertaining listen while you learn a ton.

Gordon, Aubrey. (2023). You Just Need to Lose Weight and 19 Other Myths About Fat People. Boston: Beacon.

Tiny but Mighty: Kitten Lady’s Guide to Saving the Most Vulnerable Felines

Tiny but Mighty: Kitten Lady’s Guide to Saving the Most Vulnerable Felines by Hannah Shaw is the ultimate kitten rescue book. 

Filled with step-by-step advice for helping the tiniest kittens, this is the only book you will need. It is a must-have for anyone who might find themself with a little one to save. 

This book is helpful and have the most precious photos. 

Shaw, Hannah. (2019). Tiny but Mighty: Kitten Lady’s Guide to Saving the Most Vulnerable Felines. New York: Plume.

Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World's Most Notorious Jewel Thief

Diamond Doris: The World's Most Notorious Jewel Thief by Doris Payne and Zelda Lockhart is a fun, fast read about a very successful thief.

Doris grew up in West Virginia in a coal mining town. At eight years old, she decided she had to protect her mother from her abusive father. That was also when she decided she would never get married.

Not long after, Doris realized that it was easy to distract the shop person she was talking to, to the point of them losing track of their merchandise. Thus began a seven decade long career that spanned the globe. 

This is a great memoir. Super fun read about a bad ass woman who told a psychologist when asked why she did it, that the jewelers wanted her to take the diamonds to absolve them of thier guilt for selling African diamonds. 

Payne, Doris & Zelda Lockhart. (2019). Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World's Most Notorious Jewel Thief. NY: Amistad. 

The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean

The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey is a nonfiction trill as she follows the possibility of massive waves around the globe with surfers, scientists, insurance agents and wreck salvagers.

Think of the wave at the end of Point Break - so big it is impossible to ride or even survive. Now consider that as larger waves were discovered by surfers, they adapted to the greater speed. Big wave surfers are towed to the wave crest by jet skis. 

What causes these waves? And the waves that are said to have eaten ships in the part of the map that used to say, "There be monsters?" And how can they be predicted for ships' safety?

Casey tells us the answers and current theories in this wonderful book. From Hawaii with Laird Hamilton to South Africa with a man who salvages ships in the most likely place for them to sink on the planet, she breaks down what is known and what it still to discover about the ocean and its waves, moods and forces.

If you are looking for an engaging, heart-pumping read in nonfiction, I wholly recommend this book.

Casey, Susan. (2010). The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean. New York: Doubleday.

The Body: A Guide for Occupants

The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson is an informative, humorous look at what makes a human.

Going part by part (or system by system) Bryson uses his famous humor to impart the fun, interesting, and strange facts about the human body and the people who study us.

This is a great introduction for those of us who did not take a lot of physiology classes in school. You will also be better at trivia games once you read it!

Bryson, Bill. (2019). The Body: A Guide for Occupants. New York: Doubleday.

The Sun is a Compass: My 4,000-Mile Journey into the Alaskan Wilds

The Sun is a Compass: My 4,000-Mile Journey into the Alaskan Wilds by Caroline Van Hemert is the story of two people traveling from Bellingham, Washington to the Arctic Circle, ending in Kotzebue wholly under their own power - rowing, skiing, paddling, hiking.

After finishing a degree in biology, that kept her in the lab so long that she needed a trip to remind her of her love of birds and nature. Joined by her husband, Pat, a builder who designed and built his first cabin in Alaska at nineteen, they came up with an ambitious route that they tackled in 2012.

Traveling through the Inside Passage, Coast Mountains, Yukon River, Yukon, Mackenzie Delta, Artic Coast, Brooks Range and Noatak River this was an incredible jouney.

Van Hemert includes information on the birds they see along the way, including the Roufus Hummingbird who has the longest documented migration, there is so much in this adventure for bird lovers. 

Van Hemert, Caroline. (2019). The Sun is a Compass. New York: Little, Brown Sparks. 

You'll Never Believe What Happened To Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism

You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism by Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar is a funny but sad look at white people in the United States.

Filled with hilarious true stories from Lacey's life, many from work, this book presented by two sisters is not only a look at how far we have to go, but at a close sibling relationship. Amber tells the stories, Lacey interjects when necessary to keep her on track.

This project came about because so many white people have so many stupid, racist things to Lacey, that she started to keep a journal. She and Amber talk about them on the phone: Amber is in New York City and Lacey in in Omaha, Nebraska (their home town). 

This is a look at the crazy things that happen everyday if you are Black in America. Go buy a copy today, laugh while you learn what not to say to your Black coworkers and friends!

Ruffin, Amber & Lacey Lamar. (2021). You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism. New York: Grand Central Publishing.

The Twenty-Ninth Day: Surviving a Grizzly Attack in the Canadian Tundra

The Twenty-Ninth Day: Surviving a Grizzly Attack in the Canadian Tundra by Alex Messenger is a harrowing tale set in a beautiful topography. 

After growing up going to kayaking camp each summer, Alex Messenger joins four other high school seniors and one adult for a six hundred mile trek / paddle across the Canadian taiga, tundra and lakes in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. 

The group is transported by small plane to Wholdia Lake to start their adventure. The planed route is forty-two days long. They will not likely see any other humans until they overlap with a group of young women doing a different path that leads to the same final village. 

The trip is gorgeous. It is land that few people see. The lakes and portages are beautifully described. It is the trip of a lifetime.

Then on the twenty-ninth day, a day of rest, Alex takes a short walk on an island in the middle of a huge lake. He has napped and missed the rest of the group who have just returned from their walk. He plans to climb the hill and get some photographs of the landscape.  

It is rate to even see a grizzly bear. The team had seen two already on the trail - both a safe distance away. But this day Alex surprises one. He fights back, using his hard-sided camera case to swing at the bear. But he is badly hurt. When he comes to, with no idea how long he was unconscious, he can see the bear leaving from the corner of his eye. 

Once the bear is out of site, Alex used his last adrenaline to get back to camp. Then he has to decide if his injuries can be taken care of in the wild, or a helicopter or plane should pick him up. The next part of the trek includes daily check ins on the satellite phone, consulting with doctors in Minnesota, where the guys live. Each day is a balance between staying (thought to be better for PTS) or getting medical attention from an actual doctor. 

Messenger used his journals and the input of his trip mates to put together his incredible story. Even in spite of the attack, after reading this, I would jump at the chance to canoe though Canada! Read this book for an amazing, real-life, adventure. 

Messenger, Alex. (2019). The Twenty-Ninth Day: Surviving a Grizzly Attack in the Canadian Tundra. Oregon: Blackstone Publishing.

Daoism: A Beginner's Guide

Daoism: A Beginner's Guide by James Miller is a great introduction to a philosophy and religion of balance.

This is a great introduction to Daoism, from its creation through the main three schools of thought today, including the philosophies, Tai Chi, and meditation.

Beginning in China, spanning centuries and almost every part of the globe, this guide is beautifully organized some of the main concepts in Daoism. Miller also explores how Daoism and Buddhism influenced each other over the ages.

This is a beautiful book whose timeliness in the current pandemic may give you some ways to refocus your mind.

Miller, James. (2014). Daoism: A Beginner's Guide. London: Oneworld.