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If I could encourage anyone to do anything in 2024, it would be to read. Not just immersive fiction that takes you away to faraway places (although those are awesome too), but books that make you think. Books that give context to the world we live in. Books that challenge the way most people think or are led to believe by outside forces. Knowledge is powerful!
Below are twelve books from my shelves that I can’t wait to dive into this year:
1 // The Psychobiotic Revolution: Mood, Food, and the New Science of the Gut-Brain Connection by Scott C. Anderson
This book “explains how gut health drives psychological well-being, and how depression and anxiety can be relieved by adjusting your intestinal bacteria.” Can you imagine how many people could be helped if this is true?! I’m intrigued to learn more.
2 // Gold: The Race for the World’s Most Seductive Metal by Matthew Hart
I bought this one solely because of a question from one of my kids: “Why does gold cost so much and when did people start using it as a sign of wealth?” Well, I don’t know, but I’ll go find out! Hopefully this book has some of the answers.
3 // Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion by Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson
We seem to easily be able to identify propaganda when it’s in the rear view mirror, but could we see it if it’s right in front of us? “Age of Propaganda shows how the tactics used by political campaigners, sales agents, advertisers, televangelists, demagogues, and others often take advantage of our emotions by appealing to our deepest fears and most irrational hopes, creating a distorted vision of the world we live in.” Identification of propaganda is a skill I want to practice.
4 // Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester
Have you heard of this volcano? This eruption happened in 1883 and was followed by a tsunami that killed almost 40,000 people. But the story gets crazier: while the eruption/tsunami was terrible on its own, the entire world was also affected in unexpected ways. “Dust swirled round the planet for years, causing temperatures to plummet and sunsets to turn vivid with lurid and unsettling displays of light. The effects of the immense waves were felt as far away as France. Barometers in Bogotá and Washington, D.C., went haywire. Bodies were washed up in Zanzibar.” And more.
5 // Dark Winter: How the Sun Is Causing a 30-Year Cold Spell by John L. Casey
This short little book takes on an alternate view(?) of what we’re seeing in terms of climate change. His research and theory is that we’re experiencing “a solar cycle that is now reversing from its global warming phase to that of dangerous global cooling for the next thirty years or more.” I’m interested to hear more.
6 // Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning
I was recommended this book as a way to explain the steps needed to make fellow countrymen turn on and do horrendous things to each other. While this is about the Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police during WWII, “the general argument Browning makes is that most people succumb to the pressures of a group setting and commit actions they would never do of their own volition.”
7 // Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America by Alec MacGillis
A book about Amazon! This one “is a literary investigation of the America that falls within that company’s growing shadow.” It supposedly touches on data centers and that is especially important to me as nearby communities are fighting to keep them out of our county.
8 // Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons by Kris Newby
Living in the country, we see our share of ticks. But listen to this: “…this true story dives into the mystery surrounding one of the most controversial and misdiagnosed conditions of our time-Lyme disease-and of Willy Burgdorfer, the man who discovered the microbe behind it, revealing his secret role in developing bug-borne biological weapons, and raising terrifying questions about the genesis of the epidemic of tick-borne diseases affecting millions of Americans today.” WHAT?!
9 // Dressing with Dignity by Colleen Hammond
The subject of modesty is a hot topic among women, but I’m diving in anyway. The author of this book argues for dressing in a way that accentuates “the beauty of femininity” and I’d like to see what that means to her.
10 // The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing by Merve Emre
The Myers-Briggs personality test has had a cult following for years and most people see their four letters as an integral part of their identity. This is the background story of that test “conceived a century ago by a mother and her daughter—fiction writers with no formal training in psychology—and how it insinuated itself into our boardrooms, classrooms, and beyond.” (I just started this one this week!)
11 // To the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care by Cris Beam
This one is about foster care, “an unforgettable portrait that takes us deep inside the lives of foster children at the critical points in their search for a stable, loving family.” Sounds heart-breaking, but also so important.
12 // The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes
And finally: how about a book on the Great Depression? It’s always good to read about hard times and how people endured them. Their resilience and tenacity is always inspirational.
Your turn: what non-fictions books are on your radar this year?
