Last Updated: May 24, 2025
Mark Twain
by Ron Chernow
Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in 1835, under Halley’s Comet, the rambunctious Twain was an early teller of tall tales. Drawing on Twain’s bountiful archives, including his fifty notebooks, thousands of letters, and hundreds of unpublished manuscripts, Chernow masterfully captures a man whose career reflected the country’s westward expansion, industrialization, and foreign wars.
An essential investigation into the collapse of youth mental health-and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults.
In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, preventable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year. In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world–and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.
Class Clown is Dave Barry’s hilarious memoir tracing his journey from mischievous minister’s son to Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist. With wit and warmth, Barry recounts his rock-filled childhood, quirky journalism career, and offbeat adventures in writing, music, and satire–offering a joyful reminder to never take life too seriously.
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
by Bessel A. van der Kolk
Bessel van der Kolk transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring–specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, mindfulness techniques, play, yoga, and other therapies.
Abundance
by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson
This book discusses the history of the twenty-first century as a story of unaffordability and shortage in America. It highlights the national housing crisis, labor shortages due to limited immigration, insufficient clean-energy infrastructure, and delayed, over-budget public projects. The author argues that the root cause of these problems is a lack of sufficient building and proactive planning over the decades.
My Next Breath
by Jeremy Renner
The gripping and inspiring story of acclaimed actor Jeremy Renner’s near-fatal accident, and what he learned about inner strength, endurance and hope as he overcame insurmountable odds to recover, one breath at a time.
Matriarch
by Tina Knowles with Kevin Carr O’Leary
Tina Knowles, the mother of iconic singer-songwriters Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Solange Knowles, and bonus daughter Kelly Rowland, is known the world over as a Matriarch with a capital M: a determined, self-possessed, self-aware, and wise woman who raised and inspired some of the great artists of our time. But this story is about so much more than that. Matriarch begins with a precocious, if unruly, little girl growing up in 1950s Galveston, the youngest of seven.