100 books like The Beauty Bias

For months, Asian women in Oakland, CA, reported a nonstop stream of harassment and muggings by local youth. The problem: their harassers were Black. In a lineup, the women couldn't identify their attackers, and they walked free. To counter this, women in the community received cross-racial training...which failed. The robberies stopped when cameras were installed and the police didn't need a victim to ID anymore. Eberhardt’s book is full of gems like this, smart snippets of life, and the innate biases that run it. This smart examination of cognitive biases goes further than pointing out how racial biases influence criminal justice — it also offers some solutions, especially for unconscious prejudices. These take the form of unconscious bias training, and forcing people to deal with uncomfortable subjects.

This first-person account of what it’s like to grow up visibly different is beautifully written, and manages to be both heartrending and uplifting at the same time. Henley does a stellar job of keeping the reader invested in her struggles, and her musings on how pervasive the idea of arbitrary physical traits and one’s value as an individual is, makes for an uncomfortable but necessary read. A must-read for anyone who’s ever felt like they don’t fit in.

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.

This book spares no punches, diving straight into the chaos that was the Women’s House of Detention in NYC’s Greenwich Village, aka The Hellhole in the 60s and 70s. First-person narratives and choice juicy details make the lives of the women come alive, from their annual fashion show to their cellblock politics and pink-painted bars. All too often, dispatches like this lack color and clarity, but this unfiltered take is far more gripping, and avoids stereotypes. We meet a wide range of people, scarred sex workers who refuse plastic surgery as “it’s too late for them,” pregnant teens who dreamt of hair salon careers, and substance abusers who cycled in and out, multiple times.

Despite being forced to live in rat-infested slum-like conditions, with shoddy medical care, many of the women remained spirited, even upbeat. But their continued struggle to maintain their sense of identity and femininity, despite minimal resources,… show more.

This story about four patients cared for by nurse practitioner and acclaimed poet Cortney Davis reminds me a bit of pandemic narratives in that she works in a public clinic with individuals whose financial, emotional, or social situation puts them at risk. Since her patients are all female, their needs are related to gynecology, but the bigger story is Cortney’s ability to connect with them on a humanistic level and share their hopes, concerns, and fears.

Drawing on more than three decades of experience, Dr. Romm has written an essential guide to female health and wellness. For Romm, herbs hold pride of place in the art and science of healing. As a midwife, herbalist, and board-certified family physician with a specialty in women’s health and obstetrics, her work combines a deep understanding and respect for both traditional herbal medicine and Western allopathic medicine. Anyone who wants to better understand or address specific female health issues will benefit from this revelatory book. Anyone who wants to integrate herbs into their lifestyle will enjoy the book’s abundant tips, meal plans, and 6-week action plan. Dr. Romm’s big-hearted and encouraging style will leave readers feeling committed to charting a course for better health at any age.

If the healing power of crystals has ever drawn you in, I recommend having this book as a staple in your life. I personally know the author and she teaches from a truly pure, embodied, and reverent space. With this book you will learn everything from how to ethically source, care for and collect crystals, how to work with them for different purposes, the 10 crystals every woman needs, and specific crystal rituals for love, fertility, and more. Beautifully put together with breathtaking photos and integrity-filled practices, this book will elevate the power of nature in your life, health, and heart!

I heard about Burnout by sisters Emily Nagoski, PhD, and Amelia Nagoski, DMA, on a recent Brené Brown Unlocking Us podcast episode, and it was a happy surprise to learn that we share a literary agent! I listened to the audiobook and found I got something out of every single chapter. The book is aiming high: it wants to end the cycle of feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. I’ve been asked for book recs to help with shaky feelings from my fellow beautiful voyagers, and I often mention Burnout since it delves into how emotions can affect our bodies without us even knowing it’s happening. The book explores some of the core reasons women may be facing the kinds of symptoms described above, and works to systematically break them down.

If you have questions, Dr. Gunter has answers. Periods come and go, but we’re not actually taught that much about them in health class. Dr. Jen Gunter is here to fix that.

She’s informative, humorous, and personal, both expert and friend at the same time. I wish someone had handed this book to me in my early teens and asked me to reread it until all of it was burned into my memory.

Today, struggles for abortion access are usually focused on legislatures and courts. These can seem like the only avenues for achieving change.

Yet Seizing the Means of Reproduction gives us an alternative picture of reproductive health and abortion politics, by exploring the history of the women’s health movement in the USA during the 1970s and 1980s.

Activists in this movement saw doctors and hospitals as powerful male-dominated institutions that exerted too much power over women’s bodies. In response, the activists developed new models for practicing reproductive health to give people power over their own bodies and reproductive activities. Self-managed abortion was one important part of their work, and Murphy’s book explores this history in lively detail.

The activists in Murphy’s narrative built their own self-help groups and resources outside of mainstream medical institutions, deliberately, because they saw this as the pathway for achieving women’s emancipation.