32 books like Anti-Vaxxers

By Jonathan M. Berman,

Here are 32 books that Anti-Vaxxers fans have personally recommended if you like Anti-Vaxxers. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of A Journal of the Plague Year

Ericka Johnson Author Of A Cultural Biography of the Prostate

From my list on think twice about your doctor’s advice.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have an annoying habit of figuring out why someone says or believes what they do—and think that is more interesting than their actual ‘truth’. I try to keep this in check during social events (it can make for painful dinner table conversations if I go too far). Still, it means the general take on the medical humanities (and I’d put all the books below in that wide category) is something I’m passionate about. Why do we believe what we do about health? About disease? About the body? And why do we think medical doctors have the truth for us? 

Ericka's book list on think twice about your doctor’s advice

Ericka Johnson Why did Ericka love this book?

I read this book 3 months into the COVID-19 pandemic and LOVED it—it totally made me realize that: 1. we’ve been here before; 2. our reactions and responses are all tried and true (and probably not that useful); and 3. we would survive this time, too—at least most of us.

This is Daniel Defoe (yes, you know him from Robinson Crusoe) explaining what it was like to live in London when the plague came. It wasn’t pretty. The most chilling moment in the book came at the end, when I googled facts about the plague, realized it went away, and then came back repeatedly for decades.

By Daniel Defoe,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked A Journal of the Plague Year as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The haunting cry of "Bring out your dead!" by a bell-ringing collector of 17th-century plague victims has filled readers across the centuries with cold terror. The chilling cry survives in historical consciousness largely as a result of this classic 1722 account of the epidemic of bubonic plague — known as the Black Death — that ravaged England in 1664–1665.
Actually written nearly 60 years later by Daniel Defoe, the Journal is narrated by a Londoner named "H. F.," who allegedly lived through the devastating effects of the pestilence and produced this eye witness account. Drawing on his considerable talents as…


Book cover of The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria, and Hubris

Nancy Tomes Author Of The Gospel of Germs: Men, Women, and the Microbe in American Life

From my list on get you ready for the next big pandemic.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion for this topic dates back to my childhood and being impressed by the scary diseases and unhygienic toilets that were part of my family lore. I grew up to be a historian of medicine, which allowed me to indulge my interest in deadly diseases—at a safe historical distance! That curiosity led me to write the Gospel of Germs, a history of popular understandings of the germ theory of disease. Post-COVID, I am thinking about how to get ready for the next big pandemic that climate change and globalization will likely throw at us: will it be bird flu, dengue, mpox, or some new COVID variant?

Nancy's book list on get you ready for the next big pandemic

Nancy Tomes Why did Nancy love this book?

I love this book because Mark Honigsbaum puts COVID in a sweeping historical perspective. He writes insightfully about well-known epidemics of the past century (the 1918-1919 influenza, HIV- AIDs, Ebola) and lesser-known outbreaks of diseases (like bubonic plague and parrot fever).

Honigsbaum combines good science writing with profiles of interesting characters, including microbial, animal, and human actors. Be sure to buy the new version that he revised to include COVID-19. 

By Mark Honigsbaum,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Pandemic Century as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

How can we understand the COVID-19 pandemic?

Ever since the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, scientists have dreamed of preventing such catastrophic outbreaks of infectious disease. Yet, despite a century of medical progress, viral and bacterial disasters continue to take us by surprise, inciting panic and dominating news cycles. In The Pandemic Century, a lively account of scares both infamous and less known, medical historian Mark Honigsbaum combines reportage with the history of science and medical sociology to artfully reconstruct epidemiological mysteries and the ecology of infectious diseases. We meet dedicated disease detectives, obstructive or incompetent public health officials and brilliant…


Book cover of Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine

Jonathan Charteris-Black Author Of Metaphors of Coronavirus: Invisible Enemy or Zombie Apocalypse?

From my list on the human reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Why am I passionate about this?

I founded Critical Metaphor Analysis, an approach that has become well known in English language studies. My books Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis, Politicians and Rhetoric: The persuasive power of metaphor, and Analysing Political Speeches have over 5,000 citations. I am also ranked first on Google Scholar on political rhetoric. I have always tried (though not always successfully) to write in an accessible style to reach out to audiences beyond academia. As well as lecturing, I assist in the training of Westminster speechwriters. I love languages and speak French, Spanish, Moroccan Arabic, and Malay with varying degrees of incompetence; I have rediscovered the pleasure of watercolour painting.

Jonathan's book list on the human reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic

Jonathan Charteris-Black Why did Jonathan love this book?

I found this a fascinating account of the origins and history of quarantine, stretching from medieval times right up to the Covid-19 pandemic, the authors take us on a tour of the many different forms that quarantine has taken in different parts of the world. Quarantine is about finding out what may be hidden within the body but this book reveals much about the different cultural and historical settings where quarantine has been employed. The book helped me understand why the responses to Covid-19 were so diverse in spite of the fact that governments were dealing with the same illness.

By Geoff Manaugh, Nicola Twilley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Until Proven Safe as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Manaugh and Twilley shed illuminating light on a phenomenon that seems utterly of the present moment.' Financial Times' Best Books of the Year

'Startlingly timely, authoritatively researched, and electrifyingly written.' Steve Silberman, author of NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity

Quarantine has shaped our world, yet it remains both feared and misunderstood. It is our most powerful response to uncertainty, but it operates through an assumption of guilt: in quarantine, we are considered infectious until proven safe. An unusually poetic metaphor for moral and mythic ills, quarantine means waiting to see if something hidden inside of…


Book cover of Stuck: How Vaccine Rumors Start -- And Why They Don't Go Away

Jonathan Charteris-Black Author Of Metaphors of Coronavirus: Invisible Enemy or Zombie Apocalypse?

From my list on the human reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Why am I passionate about this?

I founded Critical Metaphor Analysis, an approach that has become well known in English language studies. My books Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis, Politicians and Rhetoric: The persuasive power of metaphor, and Analysing Political Speeches have over 5,000 citations. I am also ranked first on Google Scholar on political rhetoric. I have always tried (though not always successfully) to write in an accessible style to reach out to audiences beyond academia. As well as lecturing, I assist in the training of Westminster speechwriters. I love languages and speak French, Spanish, Moroccan Arabic, and Malay with varying degrees of incompetence; I have rediscovered the pleasure of watercolour painting.

Jonathan's book list on the human reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic

Jonathan Charteris-Black Why did Jonathan love this book?

This book by an anthropologist explores the dynamics of anti-vaccine rumours: how they are initiated and how – like a virus they spread. She uses the metaphor of fire, and since I also wrote a book on this topic I am interested in this metaphor. She takes into account the emotional basis for anxiety about vaccinations among both the vaccine hesitant and among vaccine opponents. While rejecting the validity of their arguments, she nevertheless makes these more likely to be overcome by offering a nuanced account of some of the emotional and psychological reasons for such beliefs. It’s a kind and thoughtful book.

By Heidi J. Larson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Stuck as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Vaccine reluctance and refusal are no longer limited to the margins of society. Debates around vaccines' necessity - along with questions around their side effects - have gone mainstream, blending with geopolitical conflicts, political campaigns, celebrity causes, and "natural" lifestyles to win a growing number of hearts and minds. Today's anti-vaccine positions find audiences where they've never existed previously.

Stuck examines how the issues surrounding vaccine hesitancy are, more than anything, about people feeling left out of the conversation. A new dialogue is long overdue, one that addresses the many types of vaccine hesitancy and the social factors that perpetuate…


Book cover of Vaccine Hesitancy: Public Trust, Expertise, and the War on Science

Taylor Dotson Author Of The Divide: How Fanatical Certitude Is Destroying Democracy

From my list on healing America’s dying democracy.

Why am I passionate about this?

Conflict and disagreement have always interested me. I was a middle child, so I naturally fell into the role of peacemaker. But I also had strong opinions, and I always thought I knew the right answer. The pursuit of education, love, and a career brought me to rural Montana, an Asian metropolis, and everywhere in between. These experiences deepened my fascination regarding how people could have such different beliefs, and how we are to live together despite those differences. A PhD in Science and Technology Studies, supervised by a political scientist, sent me on the path to diagnosing what ails American democracy, and what the cure might be.

Taylor's book list on healing America’s dying democracy

Taylor Dotson Why did Taylor love this book?

Despite ever louder calls to “follow the science,” vaccine skepticism only seems to be rising.

Maya Goldenberg’s arguments helped me see why handwringing over the “war on expertise” fails and how we could do better. She shows that the crisis is rooted in declining public trust of medical institutions. Vaccine Hesitancy helped open my eyes to a critical fact: Medical skepticism is a rational response to a history of research scandals, corporate misconduct, and discrimination.

I honestly believe that had public officials paid attention to books like Vaccine Hesitancy, the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic would not have torn Americans apart. 

By Maya J. Goldenberg,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Vaccine Hesitancy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The public has voiced concern over the adverse effects of vaccines from the moment Dr. Edward Jenner introduced the first smallpox vaccine in 1796. The controversy over childhood immunization intensified in 1998, when Dr. Andrew Wakefield linked the MMR vaccine to autism. Although Wakefield's findings were later discredited and retracted, and medical and scientific evidence suggests routine immunizations have significantly reduced life-threatening conditions like measles, whooping cough, and polio, vaccine refusal and vaccine-preventable outbreaks are on the rise.

This book explores vaccine hesitancy and refusal among parents in the industrialized North. Although biomedical, public health, and popular science literature has…


Book cover of On Immunity: An Inoculation

Sara Jensen Carr Author Of The Topography of Wellness: How Health and Disease Shaped the American Landscape

From my list on creating, building, and thinking about healthier places.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a professor of architecture, urbanism, and landscape at Northeastern University in Boston, as well as a licensed architect and urban designer. I’ve always been fascinated by the ways the design of the world affects our decision-making, health, and opportunities, from the early days of my career designing hospitals to my current work researching and designing for green space equity and considering how we design in the age of pandemics and climate change. I hope these books, as well as my own writing and work, empower people to understand, ask for, and co-design healthier environments wherever they live, work, and play.

Sara's book list on creating, building, and thinking about healthier places

Sara Jensen Carr Why did Sara love this book?

Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag was an incredibly formative piece of writing for me, especially when I was thinking about how fears of tuberculosis and cancer shaped early and mid-20th-century design. I think this book picks up where that one left off, a piece of writing that not only writes a medical history but frames how we think about health, disease, and fear in discussions about vaccination, but with a great deal of empathy. This is a crucial read to understand how we bridge divisions and move forward in our pandemic age.

By Eula Biss,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked On Immunity as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A New York Times Best Seller
A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist
A New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book of the Year
A Facebook "Year of Books" Selection

One of the Best Books of the Year
* National Book Critics Circle Award finalist * The New York Times Book Review (Top 10) * Entertainment Weekly (Top 10) * New York Magazine (Top 10)* Chicago Tribune (Top 10) * Publishers Weekly (Top 10) * Time Out New York (Top 10) * Los Angeles Times * Kirkus * Booklist * NPR's Science Friday * Newsday * Slate * Refinery…


Book cover of Cracking India

Nev March Author Of Murder in Old Bombay

From my list on India blending history with gripping mysteries.

Why am I passionate about this?

I lived the first 24 years of my life in Mumbai and traveled to many parts of India. I’ve had close friends of every community and religion and been fascinated by the incredible diversity. By studying historical crimes and how they were reported and investigated, I learned a great deal about the norms of Indian culture. Reading (and writing) historical mysteries allowed me to dive into past eras and immerse myself in the tumultuous events that have shaped our world today. While I’m obsessed with the turn of the 20th century, mysteries in later years also delight me. Enjoy this selection of mysteries set in India that reveal the inner workings of its diverse culture.

Nev's book list on India blending history with gripping mysteries

Nev March Why did Nev love this book?

Sidhwa’s book describes the partition of India that formed present-day India and Pakistan. These tortured days and the tragedies and massacres that followed are viewed through the lens of a gentle and educated Parsi family. The narrator is Lenny, a young girl afflicted with polio, whose active observations center on the members of her family and servants. Her eighteen-year-old Ayah and the devotion of the ice-candy man play out against the backdrop of terrible hatred and betrayal, where religious affiliation trumps all, even what some call love, and others, lust. 

This book had me weeping for days. Its simplicity is deceptive. The simple narration from a six-year-old is entirely believable, the confusion of what really happened, and what it means. But the adult me could read between the lines and understand the full measure of tragedy, the horror, the inevitable result. And I was glad that Lenny was too young…

By Bapsi Sidhwa,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Cracking India as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A New York Times Notable Book: A girl’s happy home life is suddenly disrupted by the 1947 Partition of India in this “multifaceted jewel of a novel” (Houston Chronicle).

Young Lenny Sethi is kept out of school because she suffers from polio. She spends her days with Ayah, her beautiful nanny, visiting with the many admirers that Ayah draws. It is in the company of these working-class characters that Lenny learns about religious differences, religious intolerance, and the blossoming genocidal strife on the eve of Partition.

As she matures, Lenny begins to identify the differences between the Hindus, Moslems, and…


Book cover of Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio

Marsha Hayles Author Of Breathing Room

From my list on when illness touches a young person's life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an author fortunate to be alive because of emergency medical treatments I received as an infant, treatments not available to one of my older sisters who died as a result. That I grew up in Rochester Minnesota—home to the world-famous Mayo Clinic where my father worked as a pediatric endocrinologist—also may have increased my awareness of how illness and its medical treatments can affect a young person’s life. 

Marsha's book list on when illness touches a young person's life

Marsha Hayles Why did Marsha love this book?

Peg Kehret brings humor and a genuine can-do attitude to her memoir about being struck by polio when she was twelve years old, leaving her paralyzed in both her arms and legs. The story of her fight to recover and to walk again is enriched by her friendship with fellow patients, the generous love of her family, and the care of a determined nurse. Peg is neither saint nor grouch—just someone you like as much as you admire. This is a feel-good book about a feel-bad topic. 

By Peg Kehret,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Small Steps as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 9, 10, 11, and 12.

What is this book about?

Peg Kehret was stricken with polio when she was twelve years old. At first paralyzed and terrified, she fought her way to recovery, aided by doctors and therapists, a loving family, supportive roommates fighting their own battles with the disease, and plenty of grit and luck. With the humor and suspense that are her trademarks, acclaimed author Peg Kehret vividly recreates the true story of her year of heartbreak and triumph.


Book cover of Living with Polio: The Epidemic and Its Survivors

Meredith Eliassen Author Of Helen Keller: A Life in American History

From my list on disability and related inclusive movements.

Why am I passionate about this?

There have always been disabled people shaping my worldview and understanding, however, I am an expert only about my own disabilities. Disabled storytellers, including Helen Keller, sometimes utilize tactical silence to scream… I value that! However, barriers confronting the disabled require broad and sometimes loud collective action from many people in many communities and not just a marginalized few. Disability activism is a complex, tactical fight over time for self-determination that touches all of us at some point. COVID, world events, and experiencing some barriers disabled and marginalized groups face all the time have compelled me to share a few of my favorite reads related to disability and inclusion.

Meredith's book list on disability and related inclusive movements

Meredith Eliassen Why did Meredith love this book?

We do not know the toll that the COVID pandemic will have in the future, we collectively only know the trauma it has wrought. Most of the disabled people I have known, including Paul Longmore, became disabled from poliovirus attacking child populations. Polio was a vector for societal transformation as the disabled constructed new lives abruptly altered by the disease. This book focuses on polio survivors. Wilson surveyed over 150 polio narratives focusing on the Silent Generation and the Baby Boomers (1930-1960) to learn about experiences over lifetimes. While some experienced temporary paralysis, others faced lifetime disability dealing with the disability industry, public relations campaigns, and rehabilitation programs. Survivors fought for accessibility and the ability to work in mainstream occupations. This book offers layered experiences still relevant today.

By Daniel J. Wilson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Living with Polio as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Polio was the most dreaded disease of twentieth-century America. Whenever and wherever it struck, hospitals filled with victims of the virus. Many experienced only temporary paralysis, but others faced a lifetime of disability. "Living with Polio" is the first book to focus primarily on the personal stories of the men and women who had acute polio and lived with its crippling consequences. Writing from his own experience as a polio survivor, Daniel J. Wilson shapes this impassioned book with the testimonials of numerous polio victims, focusing on the years between 1930 and 1960. He traces entire life experiences of the…


Book cover of The Remember Box

Susan Grant Author Of The Bottle House

From my list on authentically illustrating genuine Christian faith.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Bible college graduate whose faith has always been a practical matter. Because I learned to find the “so what” of the Bible, when I became a teacher of the Bible in the public schools of Rowan County, North Carolina, my elective courses had waiting lists for students to get in to. As I now teach in Maine, I found I could continue to share a practical Christian faith through my writing. The books I have listed here do the very thing that I seek in my own writing.

Susan's book list on authentically illustrating genuine Christian faith

Susan Grant Why did Susan love this book?

I laughed out loud reading The Remember Box. Though the story is serious, Sprinkle captured the concerns and problem-solving that 11-year-old girls have in a time in history, 1949, when life in the South was confusing for those families who took a stand against prejudice.

The author sprinkles Carley’s sense of humor throughout the novel, such as describing an imaginary friend her young neighbor has. You grow to love and understand Carley.

That Carley’s Uncle Stephen is a minister, and the novel describes the difficulties of applying God’s word to real-life issues, makes the book even better. As Carley deals with the loss of her mother to polio, she must decide if she wants to embrace her uncle’s Christian faith or reject it.

By Patricia Sprinkle,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Remember Box as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Summer in Job's Corner meant big trees, cool grass, and sweltering afternoons stretching endlessly under the Southern sun. Those were the days without plastic, microwaves, television, or air conditioning, a time when clocks ticked comfortingly in the night and a cool breeze was a gift. But as the long sultry summer of 1949 comes to an end, events will transform this sleepy Southern crossroads.

After losing her mother to polio, eleven-year-old Carley Marshall comes to Job's Corner to make a new start, along with her Aunt Kate and Uncle Stephen Whitfield and her cousins Abby and John. The family is…


Book cover of A Journal of the Plague Year
Book cover of The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria, and Hubris
Book cover of Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine

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Interested in Polio, public health, and pseudoscience?

Polio 21 books
Public Health 27 books
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