15 books like Vagina Obscura

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.

Two pharmacists sit in a Boston courtroom accused of murder. The weapon: a fungus. The death count: 100 and rising. These facts set the stage for a true-crime thriller by investigative journalist Jason Dearen, and it has the makings of a horror movie. There’s scientific hubris, sketchy ethics, a cover-up, and a monster, too: a slimy, sticky, fungal mold that infected patients and began eating their brains alive. It’s riveting, packed with information about how fungal spores managed to contaminate a medical supply chain, and frankly hard to put down. I have done my share of forensic research, and never have I encountered killer fungus before; I consider this an unmissable book.

I write about death. A lot. I might also be a death-expert, in fact (deathxspert?). My first book was on death, dying, and grief, and since then, I’ve been interviewed by NPR, Jodi Kantor for the NYT, various news outlets, and an awful lot of podcasts. Frankly, I thought I knew everything there was to know—then I read Hayley Campbell’s book. I was asked to consider not the dying, nor the grieving, but the death workers. Who cleans the body? Who embalms? Who tidies a crime scene? I was shocked to discover there are companies that specialize in plane-crash management, or that someone is still sifting through the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire and collapse. This book is a literal journey, weaving a take from peculiar unknowns and delivering an utterly riveting story.

Why are there so many sex books on my peculiar list? Because sex is one of those subjects we often ignore or treat as taboo—despite it being around since, well, according to Feltman, a particularly amorous pre-historic ameba-like critter. This book also appeals to me because, as a gender-fluid person, I love the idea that the evolutionary status quo used to be essentially pansexual, with exploded gender categories (basically, that ameba was going to try its luck with anything it came across). Along the way, this book stomps on myths and instead shares true facts, which are often much weirder. You will love it.

This is a simply astonishing book, one to be read by all women but, perhaps more importantly, by all men. To say it was a revelation to read is a bit of an understatement. It is described as a revolutionary book, providing a new understanding of what it is to be female. It’s gynaecological, historical, cultural, anthropological, and evolutionary in its massive scope. 

As the author says, the vagina is actually a muscular marvel of engineering, sensitive and strong, fluid and flexible. Far from being passive vessels, female genitalia control the most important ‘role’ of all: the survival of the species.

Dr. Blackledge is a scientist, sex educator, and fertility campaigner, and her book has sold over 100,000 copies and been translated into ten languages. Jeanette Winterton says of Raising the Skirt, ‘it is completely fascinating’.

Much more than that, it throws into sharp relief the oppression of women… show more.

I’m a bit of a rebel rouser, so when The Amazing True Story of How Babies Are Made landed on bookshelves and created a big stir, I knew I had to buy it.

What sparked the controversy was a very simplistic illustration of how the erect penis fits inside the vagina. Parents were up in arms, claimed it encouraged their children to have sex, and deemed it pornographic.

It doesn’t actually do any of that - but, instead, provides a well-crafted, funnily-told explanation of human reproduction. What it really has going for it, is that it includes an explanation (albeit a brief one) of IVF, donors, and surrogates - a rare find in a picture book.

Any resource that includes these methods in the explanation of how babies are made is a winner in my book.  

We assume people have always recognized two sexes, male and female. But did they? In the past, people believed men and women were the same sex; women were just incomplete, unfinished men. Men and women had the same sexual organs, with women’s located internally. Surprisingly, if conditions were right, women could even turn into men. They also thought women needed to achieve orgasm to conceive.  That’s right. For over a thousand years of western history, women’s sexual pleasure was as important as men’s. 

Most men think sex is largely about intercourse, and that intercourse is how women get to orgasm. Actually, the organ that triggers orgasm in women is the clitoris, which sits outside the vagina an inch or so above it nestled beneath the top junction of the vaginal lips. Only a small fraction of women can work up to orgasm during intercourse. Most need gentle, direct, extended clitoral caresses, by hand, mouth, or sex toy. This book explains the primacy of the clitoris in women’s pleasure. It should be required reading for all men.

Angier is probably the most poetic, yet fun science writer around. She could even make the anatomy of a rug sound fascinating, so it is with a subject such as the woman’s body that she was able to truly soar. It’s a science book that you won’t be able to put down. I read it all in one day while belly flopped over my bed. Interpreting female body facts through a feminist lens – I mean, 8,000 nerve endings in the clitoris! Tell me more about that! 

This is a scholarly memoir by a co-author of The Madwoman in the Attic, the feminist literary classic, and a professor of English and women’s studies at Indiana University. She was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer in 2008, then a virtual death sentence. Gubar describes several stages of treatment including "debulking" and chemotherapy and the importance of a loving support system. The writing is sober, well-documented, comprehensive, and, though published ten years ago, all too relevant.