I don’t know enough about math to even describe this book: ask me in three months? Goodreads reviewers swear it’s readable, and the author has been a frequent guest on Radiolab, which gives me hope. While it sounds interesting, this isn’t the kind of book I’d usually take to the beach. I’m making a place for it this summer.

I’m weirdly fascinated by urban planning, so this follow-up to Jacob’s classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities (one of the books that makes me feel like I’m not crazy) is on my must-read list. Many consider this later work by Jacobs to be her crowning achievement as an author and shaper of society.

Technology is changing the way we interact with each other: but is that good or bad, and what should we do about it? Turkle, an MIT professor, draws on 15 years of data to show how face-to-face relationships are changing in the facebook age. Because I make my living largely from behind a screen, this is on my must-read list.

This book has been enthusiastically recommended by several book nerds with great taste, and explores the history of mapmaking from the olden days of parchment to today’s google maps and GPS. I love a good map (who doesn’t?) and am totally intrigued: when it comes to geography, I don’t know enough to know what I don’t know.

Pixar has been called the most fascinating company on the planet, and it's easy to see why in this enthralling history, filled with big players (Steve Jobs, George Lucas) and bigger leaps forward in technology that changed the animation business, and popular culture with it. Catmull gives us a glimpse inside the company-like-no-other, from the little things (why they ditched their oval table for a square) to the big ones (Pixar's annual shutdown day, devoted to company-wide improvement). Sure to delight creatives, managers, and anyone who loves a good yarn, and an absolute must-read for Pixar fans.

If you liked The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, this is for you. Tuberculosis was the biggest killer in the 19th century, and one of the most frightening—because no one knew its cause. When Nobel winner Robert Koch announced he had found a treatment for the disease, the world flocked to his door. But Conan Doyle (better known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes) remained skeptical, and justifiably so: Koch's faulty remedy proved to be his undoing. Goetz's account of fledgling germ theory, medical pioneers, brash personalities, and deadly diseases reads like a true crime thriller. Follow this one up with A Study in Scarlet.

At age 6, Goodwin's father taught her how to keep score, igniting a lifelong love affair with baseball—and the Brooklyn Dodgers. This family history is hopelessly tangled with post-war life on Long Island and the grand scale events of the era. Popular (and accessible) historian Goodwin gives a fascinating glimpse into 1950s New York: the advent of television, Cold War nuclear drills, and the rise of the free agent. Surprisingly, this book isn't much of a departure from her prize-winning work on heavy-hitting subjects like Lincoln, FDR, and the Kennedys. Lots of fun—even for Yankees fans. You don't have to love baseball to love this book, but it sure doesn't hurt.

This deeply-researched, fascinating glimpse into twitter's early days has the pacing of a good novel and is rich with interesting insights into social media, the larger web, start-up culture, and human nature. You can't make this stuff up—but if you tried, you could only hope to invent anecdotes as bizarre and readable as the ones in this account. Recommended reading for Jon Krakauer fans.

If you've ever dreamed of opening your own bookstore, this one's for you. Wendy Welch and her husband flee jobs they loathe and escape to the tiny Virginia coal-mining town of Big Stone Gap, where they buy a huge white house to fulfill their lifelong dream of—what else?—opening a used bookstore—a decision fueled by piles of nachos and pitchers of sangria. It was an audacious goal (do people still buy real books, anyway?) but they lived to write about it. Book nerds will swoon over the behind-the-scenes peeks at a bookseller's life. A must-read for book (and bookstore) lovers.

This true story of the storm of the century, which took place off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1991, weaves in the tales of the fishing crew aboard The Andrea Gail and the dramatic rescue of the three-person crew aboard the sailboat Satori in the Atlantic. A compelling and page-turning tale of man vs. nature. Add Audible narration for $3.99.

McDougall’s quest begins with a simple question: “Why does my foot hurt? In search of the answer, he delves into a world of ultramarathons, American expats and the Tarahumara Indians in the Copper Canyons of Mexico. Don’t be put off by the lengthy segue about Why Running Shoes Are Bad. This is a great book.

K2 is slightly shorter than Mt. Everest, but it's far more deadly: for every four climbers who have summited, one has died trying. In August 2008, a series of disasters—avalanches, ice falls, broken safety ropes—contributed to the deaths of a record 11. Miraculously, two Sherpas survived. This book chronicles the disaster from the Sherpas' perspective, and brings their fascinating history to life. A must-read for anyone who loved Into Thin Air. Riveting.

I didn't think I was interested in the story of a racehorse, but after devouring Unbroken, I trusted Hillenbrand to take me on a remarkable ride, no matter the topic. In this true story that reads like a novel, Hillenbrand takes her reader on a remarkable ride, masterfully weaving together the stories of a knock-kneed racehorse and the three men who made him a champion: a bookish half-blind jockey, an eccentric trainer, and a limelight-loving owner. An incredible tale, and not just for horse lovers.

Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew were stranded on the Antarctic ice for 20 months beginning in January 1915. Alexander's story (which is named for Shackleton's ship) is compiled largely from the journals of Shackleton's 27-man crew and contains jawdropping photos by the expedition's photographer. Spellbinding.

This is a real-life Ocean’s 11 tale of a 2003 robbery in Antwerp, Belgium, when thieves broke into a supposedly airtight vault and made off with 108 million dollars of loot. The crime was flawless, but the getaway was clumsy, and real-life diamond experts Campbell and Selby were called in to track down the thieves in a real-life worldwide goose chase.

Don’t be fooled by the title: this book tells you not just how to read aloud to your children, but why, and why it’s important for you to be reading, too. Packed with tips, strategies, and over a hundred great titles, this is a book you’ll pull off the shelf whenever you’re in need of a pep talk or some new book suggestions.

In this fascinating follow-up to The Long Tail Wired editor Anderson explores what it means when almost anyone can own the means of production. He examines what it looks like when the Web generation turns to the real world, covering today’s cottage industries, niche markets, the new “factories,” and what it means for our future.

This genre-defying narrative combines history, science, memoir, and biography. You’ve been affected by the HeLa cells derived from Maryland woman Henrietta Lacks, called “immortal” because they thrive in the lab: they’ve been used to develop the polio vaccine, cure cancer, and fight the flu. But her family didn’t discover anything about the cells until more than twenty years after her 1951 death. Skloot unearths the incredible story of how that happened, weaving the tale of the HeLa cells together with Lacks’ personal narrative.

I can't tell you how many MMD readers have told me about this brand-new book, just out this month. First, the bad news: most of you are gonna hate it. The good news: if you're in the target audience, this is a great addition to your coffee table. You'll love this book if you have a serious—and thorough—love of classic literature, don't mind a few f-bombs, and pride yourself on your snarky sense of humor. Lavery lampoons Jane Eyre and Rebecca, Edgar Allen Poe and The Yellow Wallpaper, Medea and King Lear. A great Christmas gift or coffee table addition for the right reader.

A nonfiction book about laundry in the Summer Reading Guide? Absolutely. This conversational guide to a dreaded household chore was the book I didn’t know my reading life—or laundry room—needed in the pandemic era. I find reading about domesticity to be reliably soothing, but in Richardson’s hands, the subject makes for fascinating narrative fodder as well. Who knew? Among his entertaining anecdotes (my favorite being his hero’s account of removing a fresh permanent marker stain from a bride’s gown on her wedding day), Richardson offers practical tips I tried right away: I’ve removed lipstick from ivory cashmere, chocolate and marinara from a beloved white hoodie, and brightened our white bed linens so they look like new. I never expected to find so much satisfaction in doing laundry, but this bright and cheerful book changed my outlook. A perfect gift for myriad occasions.

From the publisher: "With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries."

The title is admittedly a little dry but the content is so good! This is Turkle's wake-up call to our modern era where we're over-connected to each other when apart but under-connected—thanks to our devices—when together. As a professor at MIT Turkle collected reams of research on how our devices are serving us well, and how they're not. (The latter column is the fuller one.) It gets depressing at times, but Turkle is persistently optimistic about how we can control our technology, instead of the other way around. Resistance is not futile, but highly effective, and once we understand how our devices are really affecting us, we'll be empowered to change. Surprisingly fascinating.

"In an age of villainy, war and inequality, it makes sense that we need superheroes," writes Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times. "And after trying Superman, Batman and Spider-Man, we may have found the best superheroes yet: Nuns." I had to google to see if this Jo Piazza was the same Jo Piazza who co-authored The Knockoff. I was delighted to see that it is.

In this examination of the internet as cultural phenomenon, Heffernan does for the internet what Marshall McLuhan did for media and Chuck Klosterman did for villains. If you've ever been extraordinarily depressed after reading The Shallows or the latest inflammatory think piece in The Atlantic, take heart. Heffernan puts the internet in a broader, enduring cultural context, examining its obvious benefits (magic) and less obvious downsides (loss), and if that sounds boring I'm describing it all wrong. I could not stop myself from reading this aloud to my husband. Make sure to get your hands on the book book, not the kindle version: the hardcover has one of the season's best covers. A must read for fans of Chuck Klosterman. Publication date June 7 2016.

From the publisher: "In her comic, scathing essay, Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in conversations between men and women. She wrote about men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don't, about why this arises, and how this aspect of the gender wars works, airing some of her own hilariously awful encounters. This book features that now-classic essay with six perfect complements, including an examination of the great feminist writer Virginia Woolf's embrace of mystery, of not knowing, of doubt and ambiguity, a highly original inquiry into marriage equality, and a terrifying survey of the scope of contemporary violence against women."

I blurbed this title and am thrilled to see it's finally on bookstore shelves! I know I’m not the only one who’s stood in the middle of the children’s section at the library or bookstore knowing I’m surrounded by good books to read but wishing someone would point me toward which ones to choose—and which to pass over. Jamie's done the hard work: is here to help me do just that. She’s done the hard work for you: this is a big list of annotated book recommendations, broken down by region, along with plenty of tips on using literature to foster a love of reading and a global awareness in the kids in your life.

I'm so glad I took Katie Gibson's advice and dug into this collection. In this eclectic collection he covers writing, farming, city life, puppy love, and politics, and more. My favorite essays are "Here Is New York" and "Will Strunk." The first needs no explanation; the second pays tribute to the author of The Elements of Style.

The Pulitzer-winning husband-and-wife authors tackle a big global problem in this important 2009 book. First they take a close look at the state of women in the developing world today, saying, "More girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they were girls, than men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth century." Their close examination of terrible phenomenons such as sex trafficking, forced prostitution, and genital mutilation will make you want to weep. But Kristof and WuDunn go on to convince readers why smart and well-implemented efforts to empower girls and women (as opposed to men) has an incredible impact, not just on the females themselves, but on their entire communities. The book's powerful conclusion gives you concrete action steps for practical things you can do to make a difference.

Leigh Kramer says: "I read this earlier this year and if I could make the entire world read it, I would. It's eye opening and important and powerful. Stevenson has done incredible work through the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit legal practice he started, dedicated to serving the poor, the marginalized, the downtrodden. The book is part memoir, part treatise on the state of the legal system. We follow the story of Walter, a man on Alabama's Death Row who proclaims his innocence, and meet Stevenson's other clients as he built his practice in the 1980s and the subsequent areas of injustice they've battled to this day, including death penalty sentences for children and the treatment of the mentally ill. There's also a surprising appearance by To Kill A Mockingbird—the irony and ignorance will knock you flat."