Here are 100 books that Girl in the Dark fans have personally recommended if you like
Girl in the Dark.
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I grew up on the high plains of eastern Montana. Like most rural folks, we lived close to the bone, even in the best of times. Then, when I was nine, my father died—and things got even harder. We finally had to put our acres up for lease, and I made a goal to leave that hard place. Though I worked hard for this new life I find myself leading—I studied, won scholarships, earned an MFA, and became a professor—ever since I left Montana, I’ve been trying to understand the distance between there and where I find myself now. I’ve been trying to understand rural America.
I don’t know of another book that so successfully explodes all our usual myths of rural America. Jesmyn Ward tells a story of community and tragedy as she chronicles the deaths of five young men across five years, including her younger brother, in her hometown of DeLisle, Mississippi, a rural, primarily African American community on the Gulf Coast.
This memoir is deeply sad and troubling, but I found the power of Ward’s language, wisdom, and resilience simply stunning.
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'A brutal, moving memoir ... Anyone who emerges from America's black working-class youth with words as fine as Ward's deserves a hearing' - Guardian
'Raw, beautiful and dangerous' - New York Times Book Review
'Lavishly endowed with literary craft and hard-earned wisdom' - Time
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The beautiful, haunting memoir from Jesmyn Ward, the first woman to win the National Book Award twice
'And then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped' - Harriet Tubman
Jesmyn Ward's acclaimed memoir shines…
I chose to study creative nonfiction during my MFA program so I could learn what makes great memoirs work, but I first fell in love with the genre as a teenager, when I picked up Angela’s Ashes off my mom’s bedside table. I’m grateful for the way memoir gives me a window into the lives of people of other races, religions, abilities, experiences, and even other centuries.While my book The Place We Make isn’t only a memoir—it’s a blend of memoir and historical biography—it was my desire to both understand the view through my research subject’s eyes, and analyze how I was seeing the world myself, that drove me to write it.
This whole book is a powerful exploration of alcoholism, homelessness, and the father-son relationship, but it was a single chapter that made me write “WOW” in the margins.
“Same Again” is a four-page chapter composed of nothing but short sentences that contain only euphemisms for alcohol, from “the usual” to “same again.” That sounds like it wouldn’t work, but it does. It’s poetic, gripping, and follows a narrative arc through a single evening at the bar.
Read the whole book, but don’t skip this mesmerizing chapter.
Nick Flynn met his father when he was working as a caseworker in a homeless shelter in Boston. As a teenager he'd received letters from this stranger father, a self-proclaimed poet and con man doing time in federal prison for bank robbery. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City tells the story of the trajectory that led Nick and his father onto the streets, into that shelter, and finally to each other.
Growing up, I hardly ever saw books written by people who looked like me, about people who looked like me. When I did, the Asians were often side characters, typecast as nerds (and not in a good way). I didn’t get to see Asians being “cool” kids, and I definitely didn’t see them as love interests. When I went to a performing arts boarding school, it was the first time I wasn’t the only Asian student in my class, and it was life-changing. I think if I had had these books when I was a kid, it would’ve been easier to be confident about who I was.
Growing up during the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, Marji is outspoken and brave and one of several strong female characters in this book who challenges stereotypes and kicks ass. I loved following her political, spiritual, and personal growth.
Persepolis is a much-needed history lesson in the form of a comic book. It deals with heavy themes, but not without a generous dose of humor and heart. My students and I often spent several minutes dissecting one panel—and the last panel made some of us weep.
Wise, often funny, sometimes heart-breaking, Persepolis tells the story of Marjane Satrapi's life in Tehran from the ages of six to fourteen, growing up during the Iranian Revolution.
The intelligent and outspoken child of radical Marxists, and the great-grandaughter of Iran's last emperor, Satrapi bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life.
Amidst the tragedy, Marjane's child's eye view adds immediacy and humour, and her story of a childhood at once outrageous and ordinary,…
I chose to study creative nonfiction during my MFA program so I could learn what makes great memoirs work, but I first fell in love with the genre as a teenager, when I picked up Angela’s Ashes off my mom’s bedside table. I’m grateful for the way memoir gives me a window into the lives of people of other races, religions, abilities, experiences, and even other centuries.While my book The Place We Make isn’t only a memoir—it’s a blend of memoir and historical biography—it was my desire to both understand the view through my research subject’s eyes, and analyze how I was seeing the world myself, that drove me to write it.
I sometimes think of memoir as a modern genre, but the truth is that people have been writing about their own lives for thousands of years.
This 1789 account begins with Olaudah Equiano’s day-to-day life growing up in the kingdom of Benin, Africa, and then describes his crossing the Atlantic Ocean via the Middle Passage and subsequent enslavement.
When I first read this book in college, it was the beginning of my realization that the people in history were people with whom I share all the same range of emotions and motivations that comes with being human. This book instilled in me a desire to understand the people of the past.
A first-person narrative of Olaudah Equiano's journey from his native Africa to the New World, that follows his capture, introduction to Christianity and eventual release. His story is an eye-opening depiction of personal resilience in the face of structural oppression.
Olaudah Equiano's origins are rooted in West Africa's Eboe district, which is modern-day Nigeria. He details the shocking events that led up to his kidnapping and subsequent trade into slavery. His journey starts at 11 years old, forcing him to come of age in a society that abuses him at every turn. During his plight, he attempts to find new…
I have always been enamored with the natural world and how it works. This trait, among others, led me into the fields of biology, natural history, and environmental planning. Even as I witness our species chiseling away at the planet, I find hope and solace. Working alongside the tenacity and resiliency of plants, animals, and soil microbes, I've helped landscapes as large as a river basin and as small as a garden come to life and flourish. Give nature half a chance and she can do wonders.
Ravella, a gastroenterologist, takes readers deep into the human immune system and its go-to process—inflammation.
She provides illuminating details about macrophages (a type of immune cell) and how dietary patterns can shift their normally helpful activities to harmful ones. And only recently was it learned that immune cells need certain fats (omega-3s) to make the compounds that end an inflammatory event. Where do we get Omega-3s?
In the foods we eat, among them fatty fish like salmon, grass-fed meat and dairy, and certain nuts and seeds. I also love the history of science and Ravella provides generous sprinkles of various characters and their ideas throughout the book to share how intertwined inflammation is with human biology.
Inflammation is the body's ancestral response to its greatest threats: injury and foreign microbes. But as the threats we face have evolved, new science reveals simmering inflammation underneath the surface of everything from heart disease and cancer to mysterious autoimmune conditions.
In A Silent Fire, gastroenterologist Shilpa Ravella takes us on a lyrical quest across time, around the world and into the body to reveal hidden inflammation at the root of modern disease-and how we can control it. We meet an eccentric Russian zoologist, the passionate yet flawed inventor of Kellogg's Cornflakes, and dedicated researchers working on the frontiers of…
I have lectured in 30 countries and all US States. Previously, I was the Director of Training in Mental Health for Kaiser Permanente in the Northern California region. In this capacity, I oversaw training programs in 24 medical centers where over 150 postdoctoral residents and interns are trained each year, the largest mental health training program in the US. I am the author of 15 books (translated into over 20 languages). The second edition of my book, Rewire Your Brain 2.0, came out last year. My book, Mind-Brain-Gene: Toward the Integration of Psychotherapy, encompasses the fields of psychoneuroimmunology, Epigenetics, Neuroscience, Nutritional Neuroscience, and psychotherapy research.
This book makes the complex subject of the immune system fun to learn about.
At a time when our immune systems are taxed by the COVID epidemic, many people are confused about the role of our immune response, and this book provides an in-depth description of our body’s defenses in an entertaining and compelling way.
Critically important is that there is an immune system in the brain. When chronic inflammation occurs in the body, it also occurs in the brain, contributing to depression and cognitive deficits.
The book from the creator of the wildly popular science YouTube channel, Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell, a gorgeously illustrated deep dive into the immune system that will change how you think about your body forever. __________
'A truly brilliant introduction to the human body's vast system for fighting infections and other threats' JOHN GREEN, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars
'Reads as if it's a riveting sci-fi novel . . . a delightful treat for the curious' TIM URBAN, creator of Wait But Why __________
I suspect my passion for this topic was born when my doctor came into my C-section recovery room and uttered the words “chromosomal abnormality.” My daughter has Down syndrome, and full disclosure: I had zero interest in being a disability mom. Yet as I fell in love with this beautiful, funny, sassy girl, my whole worldview shifted. I am a far better person than I was when she entered my life. She has taught me the beauty and the blessing wrapped up in the things that first appear to be the most difficult.
When I think of The Girl Who Could Breathe Underwater, the first thing that comes to mind is how nuanced and sensitive it is. It tackles an exceptionally difficult topic—sexual trauma—with a finesse and respect for the goodness of humanity that takes my breath away. There are Bad Guys in this book, but Erin Bartels reminds us that they, too, have back stories and reasons why they became the people they are. This book is the epitome of finding beauty amid life’s toughest challenges.
"Emotions leap off the page in this deeply personal book . . . . Expertly written."--Library Journal
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The best fiction simply tells the truth. But the truth is never simple.
When novelist Kendra Brennan moves into her grandfather's old cabin on Hidden Lake, she has a problem and a plan. The problem? An inflammatory letter from A Very Disappointed Reader. The plan? To confront Tyler, her childhood best friend's brother--and the man who inspired the antagonist in her first book. If she can prove that she told the truth about what happened during those long-ago summers, perhaps she can…
I have always been fascinated with bodies: the meaning we make of them; the suffering, joy, and indignities we receive through them; the outer limits of what we can do to and with them. I’ve worked in careers that have asked a lot of my own body, and I write about the brutalities humans inflict upon our own and other bodies. My work is obsessed with questions of how and why we endure suffering. Also, I’ve done a lot of dumb shit to and with my own body that has given me (in addition to a lifetime of medical problems) a highly specific perspective about intensity, hazard, and pain.
This book fucked me up so much, in the best of ways.
It is spare, tonal, and manages to lay it all out there with an economy of language that allows the more horrifying aspects (there are many) of Manguso’s medical odyssey through debilitating chronic illness to really resonate. There are details of what she endured that rattle around my head regularly. SM uses language to make you understand experiences that most people (if you’re lucky) will never have to feel.
A Spare and Unsparing Look at Affliction and Recovery that Heralds a Stunning New Voice
The events that began in 1995 might keep happening to me as long as things can happen to me. Think of deep space, through which heavenly bodies fly forever. They fly until they change into new forms, simpler forms, with ever fewer qualities and increasingly beautiful names.
There are names for things in spacetime that are nothing, for things that are less than nothing. White dwarfs, red giants, black holes, singularities.
But even then, in their less-than-nothing state, they keep happening.
I’ve been passionate about animals, the environment, and social justice since I was a child. As an adult I have been frustrated—even enraged—that so many products and practices are considered safe and “normal” even though they harm wildlife, pets, and people. I think it's bizarre that people imagine themselves as separate from the chemicals they spray in their homes and their yards, even as they breathe in the toxins. I hope that the concept of “transcorporeality,” which urges us to see our own bodies as literally part of the environment, will convince people that environmentalism isn’t optional but is a vital part of human health and social justice.
Suzanne Antonetta’s Body Toxic epitomizes what I call the “material memoir,” a mode of writing autobiography that seeks to understand the self through connections to places and substances. Antonetta bravely examines her own physical and mental health, grappling with scientific data: “I choked facts and they choked me back, they stuck like Legos—clingy but hard to build into anything real.” Recalling the nuclear warhead that caught fire nearby her childhood home, spraying radioactive particles, she notes that her entire family, bizarrely, has somehow forgotten this incident. Body Toxic is fascinating, chilling, and unnerving, but also beautifully written in unflinching yet poetic prose. Body Toxic convinced me that our life stories are incomplete if they ignore how places and substances have affected us.
A thought-provoking and dramatic account two families who hope to start a new life in the boglands of New Jersey only to discover, much too late, that their new living environment was riddled with radiation and toxic waste.
Two immigrant families drawn together from wildly different parts of the world, Italy on one side and Barbados on the other, pursued their vision of the American dream by building a summer escape in the boglands of New Jersey, where the rural and industrial collide. They picked gooseberries on hot afternoons and spent lazy days rowing dinghies down creeks. But the gooseberry…
In the years since I was 15, I have been writing and publishing books. After graduating from Florida Virtual School in 2014, I am currently pursuing a liberal arts degree with a focus on disabilities education. I'm passionate about literature, and I've dedicated myself to educating others about disabilities through my love of literature. Furthermore, I own a radio station and produce several podcasts related to disability. I contribute to seven different sites, including the mighty thought catalog and unwritten, where I talk about my life as a 27-year-old with a disability. I am also an advocate for disability rights, as well as a writer and author for disability issues.
A humorous take on what it's like to be a disabled adult. I highly recommend this book to anyone. It discusses how to interact with someone with a disability and dives deep into diversity and how to communicate effectively with adults. Having read this book has made my journey with cerebral palsy much easier and I would definitely say that it has made me look at life in more humorous ways.
Not So Different offers a humorous, relatable, and refreshingly honest glimpse into Shane Burcaw’s life. Shane tackles many of the mundane and quirky questions that he’s often asked about living with a disability, and shows readers that he’s just as approachable, friendly, and funny as anyone else.
Shane Burcaw was born with a rare disease called spinal muscular atrophy, which hinders his muscles’ growth. As a result, his body hasn’t grown bigger and stronger as he’s gotten older—it’s gotten smaller and weaker instead. This hasn’t stopped him from doing the things he enjoys (like eating pizza and playing sports and…
