34 books like Know Your Shit

This book not only provides a fascinating look at how we actually digest food, pluck out essential nutrients, and produce poop from the leftovers passing through the gut, but also includes charming and witty illustrations of many of these steps by the author’s sister, Jill.

An entire book about the gut? Yes, and it’s so interesting, with some gentle humor and well-thought-out analogies that help demystify what you’ll come to believe is a superhero of an organ.

I made notes, highlighted particularly illuminating sections, and found myself saying, “Wow! I didn’t know that!” throughout the book. It definitely gave me a new sense of wonder and appreciation for the intricate abilities of my own body.

One of the many things that astonished me about Lina’s lovely book is that although I put off reading it until I had finished my own book, for fear of too much overlap, I need not have worried.

She deftly uses different yet compelling examples for an exciting read that convincingly makes the case for giving a crap about crap. She also uses her own family’s history and experience as immigrants to provide some surprisingly moving scenes in support of her larger points.

Even after all the poop-related research I had done, I learned plenty more, which was a nice revelation: something that I thought I knew still had the ability to surprise me in profound ways.  

Should bookstores shelve Gulp in the Humor section or the Science section? Both.

With her usual comedic and eclectic approach to her subject, Roach ranges and rages through our digestive system end to end. She mixes plenty of real science with quirky and unexpected diversions headlined by chapter titles such as "Dead Man’s Bloat and Other Tales from the History of Flatulence Research"; "Up Theirs, The Alimentary Canal as Criminal Accomplice"; and "Stuffed, The Science of Eating Yourself to Death".

It’s informative. It’s fun. Worthy of digestion.

I love this book because it turns everything we think we know about poo on its head. If there was one definitive pathogen-laden substance your mother told you to never touch, poop is it! We’re all naturally disgusted by it. But feces, whether human or animal, are as natural as air, and are absolutely essential for thriving ecosystems, for soil health, and even for climate change. In nature, what’s one species trash is the other species treasure, and no one portrays this better than David Waltner-Toews, as he describes why dung beetles feast on doodies and why some animals eat their own droppings. The planet has a use for everybody’s poo, including ours, so you will have a newfound appreciation of excrement after reading this book. 

This is a fascinating and compelling journey through the most neglected and significant public health innovation since vaccines and nutritional guidelines, the modern toilet.

Author Chelsea Flanagan takes us on a wild ride through the history of this neglected and highly significant home appliance, including contemporary efforts to make toilets more environmentally friendly and even less expensive. Relatively inexpensive, safe sewage saves millions of lives a year, more than all our modern medicines combined.

This superb book was one of the first to raise the issue of how poorly we’ve considered our waste and what to do with it, and it was a big inspiration for me.

It’s thoughtful and incredibly well-researched, packed full of amazing historical details, and provides a compelling case for how and why we should get our shit together—literally. I learned so much from this book, and it really encouraged me to keep digging and exploring how we might reimagine our human output. Just an excellent read and a compelling case for change.  

Laporte’s poetic and sweeping tour of turds made me realize how flushing my toilet produces and reinscribes cultural norms. Read the history behind our collective fascination with “sewer stories,” whether it’s London’s immense blobs of underground fat or urban legends about deadly crocodiles or mutant goldfish. 

I love how this book has inspired and influenced contemporary metabolic artists. In 2017, Kathy High and Guy Schaffer created a mixed media project “committed to re-imaging and re-inserting feminist and queer stories into our histories of medicine and science” and called their work History of Shit as an homage to Laporte. I am moved by how High and Schaffer continue Laporte’s work within what might have been his natural lifespan had we not lost him and countless artists and philosophers to the AIDS pandemic.

Who doesn’t love a book about poop... Steve the Dung Beetle rolls this ball of dung past all the animals on the Savanah and along the way he teaches them why the dung beetle is so important to the environment. The illustrations are just fabulous and zookeepers write about the more endangered animals mentioned in the book. But I think the biggest plus are the poop jokes on the back of the book. Guaranteed laughs...

Everyone Poops is the first book to introduce potty training to toddlers, regardless of where they are on the readiness continuum. It is a must-have in the library of every 18-24 month old. Watch children’s eyes as you read it and you will immediately know something valuable about their potty curiosity! Most importantly, it is the best example of a potty training book that does not push a potty training agenda. Everyone Poops is a biology book, no hidden messages encouraging children to give up diapers before they are ready. 

But, Everyone Poops introduces very important vocabulary. And, yes, it’s fun to say “poop” a hundred times a day while you’re learning something new about how your body works. And, Everyone Poops also reminds children that one day they will choose where to poop – some animals poop in the water. (Note to readers: good place to insert jokes about… show more.

Some might say that this is a really crappy story. I will agree only to the extent that this book does, in fact, center on feces. Sara Todd is pregnant and she’s not craving pickles and ice cream!

This book is brilliantly written. McCluskey presents a most vile and disgusting story—one that is ripe with imagery and depravity. There’s not much that shocks and disturbs me, to be honest, but this book had me muttering, “No, oh no, no, no” in anticipation of the nasty deeds. Each one seemed progressively worse. It will likely turn your stomach and surely disgust you!