Books

fiction

Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang, Joyce Carol Oates
The thrilling story of a girl-gang in upstate New York in the 1950's. I was so obsessed with this book as a teenager that I built a fansite for it.

Into the Forest, Jean Hegland
In beautifully flowing prose, Hegland tells the story of two teenage girls struggling to survive after the collapse of civilization.

Harry Potter Series, J. K. Rowling
After being thoroughly impressed with the first movie, I began reading the books and quickly became obsessed. These books are not just for kids. There's so much to theorize about, so many minute details that you can only notice on a second read, and lots of obscure mythological and historical references.

The Last Witchfinder, James Morrow
When her scholarly aunt is burned at the stake, Jennet sets out to disprove the existence of witchcraft and thus destroy her witchfinder father's livelihood. The book is beautifully written and historically fascinating, as Jennet explores the scientific knowledge of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters
The story of a lesbian's coming of age, set in Victorian London. It's amazingly well-researched, and it's fascinating to see that even in such sexually repressive times, hidden enclaves of queer society were thriving.

The Engineer of Beasts, Scott R. Sanders
In the not-too-distant future, the land has become uninhabitable and everyone lives in pristine domed cities floating on the sea, where a rebellious teenage girl with a mechanical genius and a love of nature becomes an apprentice to a man who runs a robot-animal zoo.

Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit, Daniel Quinn
A novel of philosophy that explores human history and our relationship with the environment. I first read this book as a young teenager, and, like many who have read it, it changed my life (not even exaggerating). My opinions have evolved a bit since I first read the book and there's certainly some ideas I disagree with Quinn on now, but this book was still hugely influential on my world-view.

Ecotopia Ernest Callenbach
The classic environmental utopian novel, where the northwest US has seceded from the Union to form an ecologically-sound nation. His utopia is well-thought out, with many ideas for sustainability and ecotechnology, and I only wish that we had the political will to really create such a society.

The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
A beautifully written novel about a family of missionaries led by a naive and arrogant preacher, who go to the Congo in the early 1960's in an attempt to convert the natives.

A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
The story of the two wives of a cruel man in Afghanistan in the turbulent period around the turn of the 21st century. What the women go through is devastating, but the story ends on a hopeful note.

The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
I love a good time travel story (especially if it's of the non-paradoxical time-loop variety), but in addition to the interesting story premise, this is also a beautiful love story between a man who unwillingly jumps back and forth in time, and a girl who randomly gets visits from him throughout her childhood.

Watership Down, Richard Adams
An adventure tale about a group of rabbits who leave their warren after a prophetic warning, and set out to find a new place to live, coming into conflict with strange rabbits and other dangers along the way.

His Dark Materials Trilogy: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman
A fantasy trilogy about a multiverse, following a girl in another world where everyone has an animal spirit that stays by them, and a boy from our world who comes to possess a powerful object. Pullman is an outspoken atheist who wrote the books as an antidote to the overly Christian Narnia series, and the books have a decidedly anti-religious-authority theme.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
A five-part trilogy, starting with the classic that revealed the significance of the number 42 and introduced the babelfish that proves (and therefore negates) the existence of God.

Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
I first read this play when I was 14, after the Claire Danes/Leonardo DiCaprio movie came out, and I have loved it ever since. In 2001 I started memorizing it, one scene at a time, and I'm halfway through Act 3 now.

Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
The delightful children's classic, filled with whimsy and nonsense. The Mad Tea Party is brilliant, and Jabberwocky (from the sequel Through the Looking Glass) is one of the greatest poems ever written.

The Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean Auel
The story of a young orphaned girl growing up in Ice Age Europe 30,000 years ago; the first book of the Earth's Children series. There are some things I don't like about these books — the inaccuracies in anthropology and human evolution, the Mary Sue-ness of the main character — but I still love this series because it's well-written, has a lot of interesting detail on survival skills and wild plants, and it explores a time of human history that most people ignore.

Annie on My Mind, Nancy Garden
This is such a sweet love story. When Liza, a senior in high school living in New York City, meets Annie, she knows there's something different about her. The girls fall in love and Liza realizes she's gay, but their secret romance doesn't remain secret for very long.

The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
A brilliant fictionalized account of the life of Dinah, the only daughter of Jacob, who was briefly mentioned in Genesis. This reimagining of ancient Hebrew life shows the story from the women's perspective, and much of Dinah's life centers around the red tent where women go to menstruate and give birth.

The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
A richly imagined dystopia in which fertility rates have declined and women deemed able to produce children are forced to bear children for the barren wives of rich men.

The Color Purple, Alice Walker
An epistolary novel about Celie, a young black woman living in the South in the early 20th century, and her life as she is abused by her stepfather and her husband, and as she eventually rises above it and makes a life for herself. At one point Celie says, "I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it."

nonfiction

The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution, Richard Dawkins
I've ready many of Dawkins' books, but this is certainly his best. An overview of the evolutionary tree of life, the book moves backwards through time, going over first human evolution and then moving back to every branching point along our lineage, discussing the highlights of our relatives' evolution, from other primates to other mammals to dinosaurs and birds to invertebrates, and then to fungi, plants, and bacteria. This book shows both how closely intwined we are with other forms of life, and how diverse the tree of life has become.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond
This book arose from the question of why some human cultures wind up conquering others, and sets out to disprove the age-old assumption of the superiority of white Europeans. Instead, Diamond lays out a superb argument that geographic differences between regions allowed those cultures to develop the resources and social organization that led to their ability to spread over the world.

The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins
A study of evolution, focusing on the inherent selfishness of genes. Dawkins examines the way that genes drive evolution and how an organism's behavior reflects its genes' strategies for maximizing replication. This book also coins the extremely useful term meme, as he explains how Darwinian theory can apply to non-biological systems such as human culture.

The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
This book sets out to prove that the existence of God is exceedingly unlikely, and it succeeds at that (although I was already convinced). Dawkins also gives a sensible explanation of the origins of religion as a byproduct of other necessary adaptations, and argues that religion does much more harm than good.

Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould
Gould argues against the idea that evolution is a progress from "lower", less complex organisms, to "higher", more complex organisms, with humans as the end result. Gould says that the evolution of humans was "a cosmic accident that would never arise again if the tree of life could be replanted."

The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould
This book handily disproves the notion that IQ is an accurate measure of intelligence (or that intelligence is even a measurable thing), and also disproves the supposed mental differences between races.

The Tragedy of the Moon, Isaac Asimov
A collection of science essays on many different topics. The title essay, about the moon in human culture and its impact on calendars and history, is just fascinating, especially for a selenophile like me.

People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present, Howard Zinn
Most history books are a litany of wars and accomplishments done by white men, maybe with a box to the side about Frederick Douglass or Betsy Ross. Zinn's book, on the other hand, is about the struggle of the people--common people, not just politicians--over the history America, from Columbus's invasion to the present, with plenty of attention given to women, people of color, and labor.

Darwin's Orchestra: An Almanac of Nature in History and the Arts, Michael Sims
A compendium of natural history anecdotes, one for every day of the year. Each entry connects to a date in history and topics range from the discovery of Archaeopteryx to horror movie monsters.

Our Bodies, Ourselves, the Boston Women's Health Book Collective
A guide book to women's health with detailed information on topics like menstruation, birth control, abortion, childbirth, and relationships, sprinkled with quotes from real women talking about their experiences.

The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
Evolution is one of my favorite topics in science, and Darwin is of course the man who discovered natural selection. It's really interesting to go back and see the beginnings of evolutionary theory, and even though Darwin didn't live long enough to see new ideas like genetics that revolutionized the theory, he was amazingly accurate in his predictions, and covered a lot of the issues that relate to modern evolutionary theory.

The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education, Grace Llewellyn
A teenager's guide to unschooling, a type of homeschooling. I read this book as a junior in high school, and subsequently dropped out of my Quaker school to do unschooling my senior year, and even though I only had one year of unschooling, it made such a difference for me. I became enamored with the idea of education, and most importantly I learned how to learn. Even though my unschooling officially ended when I graduated, I've been unschooling myself ever since.

Metamagical Themas: Questing For The Essence Of Mind And Pattern, Douglas R. Hofstadter
In this amusing book, Hofstadter examines whimsies of language and thought. There's an excellent (and hilarious) chapter on sexism in language.

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Douglas R. Hofstadter
I can't understand all the things he talks about in here, especially the mathmatical formulae he discusses at length, but the part I can understand, I really enjoyed, especially the Dialogues. This book brought back my interest in Escher's art, and got me to listen to Bach's music as well. Maybe someday I'll be able to tackle Gödel's Theorem.

Living on the Earth, Alicia Bay Laurel
A cute hippy book with tons of information, like how to make pottery from the clay in a stream bed, how to give birth at home, how to can vegetables, tips for gardening, camping, etc.

poetry

Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
Whitman is probably the single most important American poet. But that's not why I like him; I like him because his poetry is absolutely gorgeous, and filled with pantheism, Quakerism, pacifism, abolitionism, and sly references to gay sex (i.e. "Calamus"). I prefer the Modern Library "Death Bed" edition, which includes "Drum Taps" (written after his stint as a nurse during the Civil War), and "Oh Captain My Captain" (a beautiful poem about Lincoln's death).

Complete Tales & Poems, Edgar Allan Poe
The complete works, including his most famous short stories and his best poetry, like "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee".

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