Here are 100 books that All the Living and the Dead fans have personally recommended if you like
All the Living and the Dead.
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Travel and writing are my two great passions. Since I was a child, I escaped reality by escaping into my own mind. I had relied on my stories of the warrior queens ever since I learned about them as a child. It was only a few years ago, when I lived in Geneva, that I had a memory flash at me of the statue of Queen Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi on a rearing horse with a curved sword held in one hand. I knew then that it was time to tell a story—my own story and that of my favorite warrior queens.
This is a surprising book because while it is certainly macabre, it’s not morbid (at least not for me) and is strangely entertaining. It demystifies the human body and the process of death and dying.
Even as the author delves into every aspect of dead bodies, she does so with compassion and humor. Rooted and backed up with science, this book held my interest from beginning to end, and I read it non-stop for over a day and a half. Despite its grave subject matter, this book is not dark or scary. It’s matter-of-fact and very educational.
For two thousand years, cadavers - some willingly, some unwittingly - have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, and helped solve the mystery of TWA Flight 800. For every new surgical procedure, from heart transplants to gender confirmation surgery, cadavers have helped make history in their quiet way. "Delightful-though never disrespectful" (Les Simpson, Time Out New York), Stiff investigates the strange lives of our bodies postmortem and answers the question: What should…
I am peculiar. Really. I’m an autistic, non-binary, PhD historian who writes weird non-fiction books—and I read them, too. Among my friends are folks like Mary Roach (Fuzz, Stiff, Bonk, Gulp), Deborah Blum (Poisoner’s Handbook), and Ed Yong (I contain Multitudes, An Immense World). Yet, despite there being so many amazing books about strange facts, it's still hard to find them in one place. Your average bookstore doesn’t have a “peculiar” section, for some reason. That’s why I started myPeculiar Book ClubYouTube show: I wanted there to be a home for authors and readers of the quirky, quizzical, curious, and bizarre. And then I thought, hey, why not make a book list, too.
From the moment the first machine gun rang out over the Western Front, one thing was clear: mankind’s military technology had wildly surpassed its medical capabilities. Bodies were battered, gouged, hacked, and gassed. But we often forget to ask the most important questions: who put the soldiers back together? And how? I’m a medical and scientific historian, so these are often the queries that haunt me most. With powerful prose, Lindsey (a dear friend of mine and an incredible author) recounts the early days of plastic surgery, of men who needed their faces rebuilt, and the man who made it happen. This book reads like an adventure and an emotional roller-coaster in one, packed with gripping and unusual facts about a uniquely modern surgical specialty.
A New York Times Bestseller Finalist for the 2022 Kirkus Prize
"Enthralling. Harrowing. Heartbreaking. And utterly redemptive. Lindsey Fitzharris hit this one out of the park." —Erik Larson, author of The Splendid and the Vile
Lindsey Fitzharris, the award-winning author of The Butchering Art, presents the compelling, true story of a visionary surgeon who rebuilt the faces of the First World War’s injured heroes, and in the process ushered in the modern era of plastic surgery.
From the moment the first machine gun rang out over the Western Front, one thing was clear: humankind’s military technology had wildly surpassed its…
I am peculiar. Really. I’m an autistic, non-binary, PhD historian who writes weird non-fiction books—and I read them, too. Among my friends are folks like Mary Roach (Fuzz, Stiff, Bonk, Gulp), Deborah Blum (Poisoner’s Handbook), and Ed Yong (I contain Multitudes, An Immense World). Yet, despite there being so many amazing books about strange facts, it's still hard to find them in one place. Your average bookstore doesn’t have a “peculiar” section, for some reason. That’s why I started myPeculiar Book ClubYouTube show: I wanted there to be a home for authors and readers of the quirky, quizzical, curious, and bizarre. And then I thought, hey, why not make a book list, too.
Women are more than their vaginas—but guess what? Vaginas are, themselves, utterly fascinating, powerful, provocative! This book takes a look backward through history, all the ridiculous things that make doctors thought vaginas did (like wandering womb syndrome), and then gives us the scoop of modern understanding. The clitoris, for instance, is so much more than we might expect—and made of erectile tissue, just like the penis! Speaking of penises, we hear a lot about ducks. Ducks are weird, man. It’s a delightful romp through anatomy and science, medicine and history, and it just might break us from thinking that vaginas are taboo.
This book does my favorite thing: It takes peculiar historical and scientific facts, and then gives them back to readers as a riveting, funny, bizarre journey. It’s just the sort of book that makes you stop, call a friend, and say did you know?? I am, myself,…
The Latin term for the female genitalia, pudendum, means "parts for which you should be ashamed". Until 1651, ovaries were called female testicles. The fallopian tubes are named for a man. Named, claimed, and shamed: Welcome to the story of the female body, as penned by men.
Today, a new generation of (mostly) women scientists is finally redrawing the map. With modern tools and fresh perspectives, they're looking at the organs traditionally bound up in reproduction-the uterus, ovaries, vagina-and seeing within them a new biology of change and resilience. Through their eyes, journalist Rachel E. Gross takes readers on an…
I am peculiar. Really. I’m an autistic, non-binary, PhD historian who writes weird non-fiction books—and I read them, too. Among my friends are folks like Mary Roach (Fuzz, Stiff, Bonk, Gulp), Deborah Blum (Poisoner’s Handbook), and Ed Yong (I contain Multitudes, An Immense World). Yet, despite there being so many amazing books about strange facts, it's still hard to find them in one place. Your average bookstore doesn’t have a “peculiar” section, for some reason. That’s why I started myPeculiar Book ClubYouTube show: I wanted there to be a home for authors and readers of the quirky, quizzical, curious, and bizarre. And then I thought, hey, why not make a book list, too.
Two pharmacists sit in a Boston courtroom accused of murder. The weapon: a fungus. The death count: 100 and rising. These facts set the stage for a true-crime thriller by investigative journalist Jason Dearen, and it has the makings of a horror movie. There’s scientific hubris, sketchy ethics, a cover-up, and a monster, too: a slimy, sticky, fungal mold that infected patients and began eating their brains alive. It’s riveting, packed with information about how fungal spores managed to contaminate a medical supply chain, and frankly hard to put down. I have done my share of forensic research, and never have I encountered killer fungus before; I consider this an unmissable book.
An award-winning investigative journalist's horrifying true crime story of America's deadliest drug contamination outbreak and the greed and deception that fueled it.
Two pharmacists sit in a Boston courtroom accused of murder. The weapon: the fungus Exserohilum rostratum. The death count: 100 and rising. Kill Shot is the story of their hubris and fraud, discovered by a team of medical detectives who raced against the clock to hunt the killers and the fungal meningitis they'd unleashed.
"Bloodthirsty" is how doctors described the fungal microbe that contaminated thousands of drug vials produced by the New England Compounding Center (NECC). Though NECC…
I am peculiar. Really. I’m an autistic, non-binary, PhD historian who writes weird non-fiction books—and I read them, too. Among my friends are folks like Mary Roach (Fuzz, Stiff, Bonk, Gulp), Deborah Blum (Poisoner’s Handbook), and Ed Yong (I contain Multitudes, An Immense World). Yet, despite there being so many amazing books about strange facts, it's still hard to find them in one place. Your average bookstore doesn’t have a “peculiar” section, for some reason. That’s why I started myPeculiar Book ClubYouTube show: I wanted there to be a home for authors and readers of the quirky, quizzical, curious, and bizarre. And then I thought, hey, why not make a book list, too.
Why are there so many sex books on my peculiar list? Because sex is one of those subjects we often ignore or treat as taboo—despite it being around since, well, according to Feltman, a particularly amorous pre-historic ameba-like critter. This book also appeals to me because, as a gender-fluid person, I love the idea that the evolutionary status quo used to be essentially pansexual, with exploded gender categories (basically, that ameba was going to try its luck with anything it came across). Along the way, this book stomps on myths and instead shares true facts, which are often much weirder. You will love it.
A rollicking, myth-busting history of sex that moves from historical attempts at birth control to Hildegard von Bingen’s treatise on the female orgasm, demystifying plenty of urban legends along the way.
Roman physicians told female patients they should sneeze out as much semen as possible after intercourse to avoid pregnancy. Historical treatments for erectile dysfunction included goat testicle transplants. In this kaleidoscopic compendium of centuries-old erotica, science writer Rachel Feltman shows how much sex has changed—and how much it hasn’t. With unstoppable curiosity, she debunks myths, breaks down stigma, and uses the long, outlandish history of sex to dissect present-day…
I’m a surgeon who loves history. I always have. I studied military history in college but decided to become a doctor because I also love helping people. In my medical training I marveled at the incredible treatments and operations we use to save lives and always felt the unsung heroes who gave us these miracles deserve to be better known. That’s why I wrote this book.
Fitzharris’s book is a page-turner that takes readers into the macabre operating theaters of the Victorian era, when surgeons rarely washed their hands or cleaned their scalpels, anesthesia did not exist, and the “best” surgeons were simply those who worked the fastest.
Joseph Lister’s effort to convince the world of the merits of antisepsis is a true underdog story in which the stakes could not have been higher.
Winner, 2018 PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing Short-listed for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize A Top 10 Science Book of Fall 2017, Publishers Weekly A Best History Book of 2017, The Guardian
"Warning: She spares no detail!" —Erik Larson, bestselling author of Dead Wake
In The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of nineteenth-century surgery and shows how it was transformed by advances made in germ theory and antiseptics between 1860 and 1875. She conjures up early operating theaters—no place for the squeamish—and surgeons, who, working before anesthesia, were lauded for their speed and…
I’ve always been fascinated with crime and crime fiction. From my early obsession with the novels of Raymond Chandler to my embarrassingly late discovery of Agatha Christie. I directed epsiodes of Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Brett for Masterpiece theatre, which was a dream come true. But it frustrates me when television dramas tread roughshod over forensic science, making absurd claims for what can be done, when the truth, as mundane as it often can be, is so much more fascinating. To this end I have just graduated with an Mlitt from the University of Dundee in Crime Fiction and Forensic Investigation. I hope this will lend my books an air of authenticity and dramatic drive.
I was drawn to this book initially because Baroness Sue Black, formerly professor of Anatomy forensic anthropology at Dundee where I did an MLitt degree in crime fiction and forensic investigation.
It was an unexpected pleasure. Not at all macabre or gruesome – alright maybe in bits. But essentially, I loved this book because it’s such a personal reflection of life from someone whose daily business is to deal with the dead. I found her descriptions of how the body works and in the end the processes that happen when we die fascinating.
Humane, compassionate, and thought provoking. A great read.
Book of the Year, Saltire Literary Awards A CrimeReads Best True Crime Book of the Month
For fans of Caitlin Doughty, Mary Roach, Kathy Reichs, and CSI shows, a renowned forensic scientist on death and mortality.
Dame Sue Black is an internationally renowned forensic anthropologist and human anatomist. She has lived her life eye to eye with the Grim Reaper, and she writes vividly about it in this book, which is part primer on the basics of identifying human remains, part frank memoir of a woman whose first paying job as a schoolgirl was to apprentice in a butcher shop,…
As a hospital clinical lab director, I have a mission to promote the value of my profession. Are we more important than our soldiers protecting our country? Politicians who make laws? Judges who help maintain law and order? I argue that the health of our families is near or at the top of our priorities. While we ask our doctors to achieve this goal, they ask us every day to help them. The lab is not about boiling tubes and colored flasks. The 8 books I have written and the 5 that I have selected illustrate, in an entertaining manner, who we really are and why we matter.
This book describes the early career of Judy Melinek, M.D., who was a forensic pathology fellow in New York City just months before the 9/11 attack.
I liked this book because it is a first-hand account of the forensic investigations that she and her team conducted regarding the deaths that occurred that fateful day.
Dr. Melinek describes the many other investigations she conducted during her time there. While most forensic pathologists have boring personalities, Dr. Melinek knows she works in a ghoulish profession and, therefore, writes with wit and is real. "Nobody shakes hands in the autopsy suite."
Just two months before the September 11 terrorist attacks, Dr. Judy Melinek began her training as a New York City forensic pathologist. While her husband and their toddler held down the home front, Judy threw herself into the fascinating world of death investigation-performing autopsies, investigating death scenes, counseling grieving relatives. Working Stiff chronicles Judy's two years of training, taking readers behind the police tape of some of the most harrowing deaths in the Big Apple, including a firsthand account of the events of September 11, the subsequent anthrax bio-terrorism attack, and the disastrous crash of American Airlines Flight 587.
I’m an American author and writing teacher for both Harvard and Oxford’s online writing programs. I am also a mother of two who lived three years in a tiny backyard guest house with my family in an effort to focus more on what we love. Editing books is a practice I have honed over decades, and when my family was stuck in a living situation that felt unsustainable, the clearest way forward was for me to ask myself how I might edit our way out of it. It worked! In this book, I share the most valuable eight principles that we learned through the process.
A powerful case for thinking deeply and clearly about what legacies we leave behind for those we love.
Leder suggests that an ethical will—unlike an ordinary will—be a summary of our life’s wisdom. Asking such questions as ‘What do you regret?’ and ‘When did you lead with your heart?’ Leder offers a wise and inspiring way to live a life of value that is a blessing for others to remember.
From the bestselling author of The Beauty of What Remains, a guide to writing a meaningful letter about your life.
Writing an ethical will, a document that includes stories and reflections about your past, is an ancient tradition. It can include joy and regrets, and ultimately becomes both a way to remember a loved one who is gone and a primer on how to live a better, happier life. Beloved Rabbi Steve Leder has helped thousands of people to write their own ethical wills, and in this intimate book helps us write…
My name is Cecilia Ruiz and I am a Mexican author and illustrator living in Brooklyn. Apart from desperately trying to make more books, I teach design and illustration at Queens College and the School of Visual Arts. I’m fascinated by visual storytelling and its evocative power. One of my idols, the French filmmaker Robert Bresson, says that art lies in suggestion. Bresson believed that things should be shown from one single angle that evokes all the other angles without showing them.All the books in this list do that—they show us death but they make us think about the mysterious and poetic ways in which life operates.
This is a book I would have loved to write and illustrate. “The bird was dead when the children found it.” says its opening line.
There are many children’s books that deal with grief and loss but The Dead Bird is one of a kind. The kids in the story didn’t know the bird when it was alive. They only meet the bird after it has died and yet, they have a funeral for it. They sing for a bird that once flew and no longer will. They cry for a life that was, but no longer is.
With child-like simplicity and directness, Robinson’s illustrations capture the human need for ritual and closure in the presence of death.
A New York Times Best Illustrated Book of 2016! This heartwarming classic picture book by beloved children's book author Margaret Wise Brown is beautifully reillustrated for a contemporary audience by the critically acclaimed, award-winning illustrator Christian Robinson. One day, the children find a bird lying on its side with its eyes closed and no heartbeat. They are very sorry, so they decide to say good-bye. In the park, they dig a hole for the bird and cover it with warm sweet-ferns and flowers. Finally, they sing sweet songs to send the little bird on its way.
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