Reading List

Books That Teach You Things Without Feeling Like School

Nonfiction that actually wants to be read. These are the books that make you feel smarter without making you feel like you are being lectured — the ones written for curious people, not students. History, psychology, culture, politics, language. All of it accessible, none of it a textbook.

Eleanor Johnson

Scream With Me

The book that reframes horror as a space women have always been allowed to be loud in. Johnson traces how the genre has historically given women permission to scream, rage, and survive — and why that matters. Smart and genuinely fun to read. If you’ve ever loved a horror film without being able to explain exactly why, this one gives you the language.

Kristen R. Ghodsee

Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism

The title sounds like a provocation and it kind of is — but the argument is serious. Ghodsee is a scholar who has spent decades studying women’s lives in Eastern Europe, and she uses real data to make the case that economic independence changes everything, including desire. It reads like a very smart friend explaining something to you over dinner.

Omar El Akkad

One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

Part essay, part reckoning. El Akkad writes about war, memory, and the way history gets rewritten by people who were never there. It’s a short book that takes up a lot of space in your head afterward. The kind of thing that makes you think differently about what you’ve always assumed was true.

Jennifer Dasal

The Club

A history of exclusive spaces — who gets in, who doesn’t, and what that’s always been about. Dasal is the host of ArtCurious, and she brings that same accessible, slightly gossipy energy to this. You’ll finish it knowing things you didn’t know before and wanting to tell someone about all of it.

Silvia Federici

Caliban and the Witch

This one requires a little more focus than the others, but it earns it. Federici connects the witch trials to the rise of capitalism and the control of women’s bodies in a way that feels less like a history lesson and more like something clicking into place. Dense in the best way. You’ll see things differently after.

Amanda Montell

Cultish

A linguistics nerd’s deep dive into the language of cults — and why it works on all of us, not just the people we think of as susceptible. Montell moves from Jonestown to SoulCycle without ever being glib about it. It’s a book about how words create belief, and it’s almost impossible to put down.

Catherine Gildiner

Good Morning, Monster

A psychologist shares five cases from her career — patients who survived things most people can’t imagine — and what it actually took to heal. It’s not clinical at all. It reads more like five quiet, devastating, eventually hopeful stories. The kind of book that makes you feel something real about resilience without ever using that word.