Fans pick 100 books like Explaining Humans

Among the biggest frustrations in my life are the moments I call “commuter questions”. These are the sorts of ponderings that pop into my head when I’m making the 90-minute drive from my home to the university where I teach, and when — safe driver that I am — I can’t simply hop online to hunt for an answer. Inevitably, by the time I’ve found a parking spot on campus, the question has disappeared from my mind. But where do those questions go? Well, apparently, they somehow wind up in Bristol, England, where science writers Matin Durrani and Liz Kalaugher are based. In Furry Logic, Durrani and Kalaugher address in-and-out-of-your-head questions like “Can mosquitoes fly in a rainstorm?” and “How do eels generate electricity?” And the answers are delightful. 

As a microbial ecologist, I didn’t need to be convinced that microbes make all life on Earth possible. I knew that Falkowski, a preeminent biological oceanographer, would be a trustworthy guide in the microbial world. What makes this book so much fun to read is how Falkowski mixes science with snippets of history, both his own and of early scientists.  

Yet, the science is the main story here and is fascinating. Microbes, specifically cyanobacteria, are the engines that first put oxygen in the atmosphere around 2.4 billion years ago, which set the stage for the evolution of more complicated lifeforms, including, eventually, Homo sapiens.  Microbes are also the ancestral source of what Falkowski calls nanomachines, which continue to power all organisms today. Falkowski convincingly argues that microbes are what make life on Earth possible. 

Like Rachel Carson, Lanham is a scientist who avoids the stilted style of his profession. His book was also a finalist for the John Burroughs Medal, and like Janisse Ray, he published with Milkweed Editions, a powerhouse publisher in environmental literature. As a black man and lover of nature, Lanham describes himself as an “unusually colored fish out of water.” Growing up in rural South Carolina, he was surrounded by woods and wetlands that beckoned his curiosity on solitary wanderings. Everything captivated him: insects, reptiles, rocks, plants, and, especially, birds. When baptized in his grandmother’s authoritarian religious faith, he questioned the ritual but not the algae and “little black commas of tadpoles” in the devotional waters. Sometime after, he came to believe in Nature’s worthiness for worship, a faith that forms the heart of this elegant book. 

I found this book while I was researching for my own book and have been recommending it regularly to families ever since. It promotes a positive view of neurodiversity without being ‘PollyAnna-ish’–I would call it positive realism.

It was written over thirteen years ago now, so not all the language will be perfect for everybody by today’s standards. However, the concepts are still very current, and they are expressed sensitively. Clinical conditions such as autism, ADHD, and dyslexia are described in a very accessible way, demonstrating how symptoms are on a continuum, and many of us can relate to at least some features of most of the conditions.

Chapters on depression and anxiety are included, and while these arguably fall under mental health rather than neurodiversity, I was really glad of their inclusion in this book, as the overlaps between mental health conditions and neurodiversity are many, and clinical distinctions… show more.

I was struck at the time, reading The Dyslexic Advantage, by the detail and nuance Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide presented about many of the common strengths of dyslexic brains.

Dyslexia, like other forms of neurodivergence, has typically been seen in (only) a negative light – yet many famous and successful business people are dyslexic, and credit this with their success. Indeed, a study in 2006 found that as many as a third of all entrepreneurs are dyslexic!

In a business world reliant on innovative thinking, The Dyslexic Advantage highlights the multiple attributes of dyslexic thinkers – from insight to pattern matching – and makes an overwhelming case for the (better) inclusion of dyslexic thinkers in society and at work. 

I still remember when my son’s speech therapist recommended this to me: she warned me that I would find it overwhelming because Temple had such huge challenges.

But I didn’t feel discouraged or overwhelmed at all. Grandin is so uniquely herself from beginning to end, so smart, so aware, so able to figure out both her own needs and those of the animals whose lives (and deaths) she improves, that I found the book totally uplifting, not to mention fascinating.

The fact that she singlehandedly made our slaughterhouses infinitely more humane proves the point my co-author and I are always trying to make: neurodivergent individuals will think of things no one else does and enrich any project or community they’re part of.

Neurodiversity is simply a reality of our species… so why are we only talking about this now in society and in the workplace?

I loved this collection of essays and reminiscences by key figures in the early neurodiversity movement, and found the stories within both touching and inspiring and even humorous (ever heard of the “Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical”?).

Here is where we can get an answer to the “why now” question: for the global neurodiversity conversation of the 2020s can be traced directly to these pioneers, their activism, and their determination to change the world. 

Nonfiction! Yes—but this is no self-help/how-to. Maria Konnikova (and some family members) suffered some personal and professional setbacks: the type of thing that happens to most of us. Bad luck. She decided to make a study of how luck impacts our success and happiness. How? By becoming a serious poker player. I loved her willingness to try something new in the face of a lot of skepticism and disapproval (especially from her beloved grandmother!).

I especially connected to her systematic approach to getting better and to her chagrin when she gets taken advantage of as the “new fish” at the poker table. I find luck a fascinating subject. Deliberately setting out to harness luck in the service of self-transformation? Yes, please. This one lives on the nightstand.

As an award-winning journalist and science writer, Robert Wright, the author of The Moral Animal, presents a lively, thought-provoking presentation of the theoretical framework of evolutionary psychology interwoven with tidbits about Charles Darwin’s life. 

I was impressed by his ability to provide compelling explanations for how moral sentiments and other important aspects of human psychology such as marriage, family, friendship, racism, deception, and self-deception evolved.