June Non-Fiction
Discover powerful true stories and big ideas in our June non-fiction picks. Dive in and find your next unforgettable read.
“Finally, the research-driven guide for navigating the digital world we’ve been waiting for! …Nuanced, compassionate, and clearly written” (Ethan Kross), this is a revelatory exploration of how our online lives can enrich human connections rather than destroy them, to help us all stay sane without staying offline.
While it’s great to go outside and touch grass, the reality is that we spend most of life with our screens, whether for school, work, or socializing. Luckily, a growing body of research shows that the variety of ever-more tailored ways that the internet allows us to connect with people has actually improved our ability to name and communicate our feelings. That, in turn, expands our emotional range and benefits our mental health.In All the Feels, tech and emotional design researcher Pamela Pavliscak reveals for the first time how being so plugged in shapes our emotions. Surprisingly, studies shows that digital detoxes have little effect on happiness. Instead, how we engage with the internet (rather than how much) profoundly shapes our lives. Even simple habits like sending emojis to our friends to signal nuance, or making a few positive digital connections every day, can meaningfully support emotional well-being. Pavliscak shows readers how we can open our phones and rather than anxiety-spiral, foster all the good feels.
A warm and authoritative guide to maternal mental health, offering real solutions, by popular online therapist Dr. Cassidy Freitas.
“Dr. Cassidy helps moms see what’s actually happening underneath the snap and the spiral, and learn practical ways to get steady again.” —Dr. Becky Kennedy, clinical psychologist and New York Times bestselling author of Good Inside
“This book is a lifeline for parents … I couldn’t put it down, and walked away truly feeling like a better parent, and human.” —Kristin Gallant, co-founder of Big Little Feeling
Motherhood is messy. Mom Needs a Moment is for the moms who find themselves losing their temper more than they’d like. Or shutting down when things feel too loud or too much. Or who are tired of snapping, spiraling, or second-guessing themselves … and want to understand why this keeps happening, and how to change it. Dr. Cassidy invites mothers to see that much of what they carry didn’t start with them, and that they have the power to choose what continues and what ends.
So how do we break the cycle? By finding what Dr. Cassidy calls margins: the spaces we can create (mental, emotional, physical, and relational) that allow us to respond differently. Margins help us catch ourselves in the moment, regulate our nervous systems, and make more intentional choices. They are where we pause, breathe, notice, soften, and shift.
Weaving together stories from her own messy motherhood moments with the tools she’s gathered as a therapist, Dr. Cassidy shows how margins can help you feel less reactive, more connected, and more like yourself again.
Long beloved for his insightful, inspiring nature writing, Richard Louv returns with his most personal book yet. Noticing is about discovering who you are by exploring the natural world. Louv shows how, by tapping into the thirty or more human senses we have, readers can develop skills––sensory, scientific, artistic, and spiritual––to see and experience the otherworlds of nature.
Through personal essays, rich with descriptions of the California wilderness around his home in the most biodiverse county in the nation, Louv draws on wisdom from influences as far-reaching as neuroscience, nature photography, Indigenous traditions, and mindfulness to foster what he calls “bioenchantment.” He offers a new, deeper understanding of what it means to see a tree, know a fox, and to become fully human.
According to the Center for Disease Control, 194 million Americans—or 76.4% of the population—have at least one chronic illness, and half of them are women. While many of these individuals finally have a diagnosis, and are no longer “sick”, they’re still not “well.” They’ve gone through the treatments, taken the medications, and yet still find themselves suffering.
So, what do you do after you’ve discovered the root of your condition, and you’re still not healed? How do you move past the trauma of being diagnosed (which often takes years for many patients), as well as the trauma of now living with this condition. More importantly, what is this limbo between sick and well that so many patients find themselves in?
The answer is Medical Trauma Brain, a phrase Health coach and patient advocate Amy Kurtz coined after years of research into her own challenges with misdiagnosed Lyme disease. Medical Trauma Brain is the trauma that hangs on pervasively even after the patient is “cured” keeping them stuck in the hell between sick and well. It’s the most overlooked but crucial part of healing, and in But You Look Fine, Amy shares the exact plan she used to move through this integral part of recovery so others can finally break free from their own bridge between sick and well.
“Amy Kurtz exposes a common occurrence that until now has gone unnamed and undiscussed by doctors and patients alike. Not only does she reveal this roadblock to wellness, but she also offers solutions, ones that we can all apply to our lives whether chronically ill, newly diagnosed, or labeled ‘cured.’ This is a paradigm shifting book and a must-read.” —Mark Hyman, MD
A prize-winning sociologist’s radical vision of the social power of erotic life.
“Fearless, candid, and bold, Sex in Public is necessary reading for anyone interested in imagining a different kind of world.” —Jennifer C. Nash, author of Black Feminism Reimagined
Whether we are contending with shame, healing from trauma, or experimenting in the bedroom, there is a common tendency to cast anything sexual as a problem best solved in private. Fears of judgment fuel an air of oppression around something that should be liberating. According to feminist sociologist Angela Jones, we must reject this solitary vision of desire to claim the pleasure fundamental to our freedom.
Sex in Public offers a revolutionary new paradigm for understanding sexuality. Sex is never strictly personal, but relentlessly social, shaped by power relations, and possessing outsized power of its own. To make this case, Jones charts the inner and interrelated workings of our desires, behaviors, identities, relationships, and communities.
Guiding readers through field-leading sociology, sexual science, and the voices of sexual rule-breakers worldwide, Jones pinpoints the repressive forces that distort eroticism’s power, but also reveals our means of breaking free. Championing a rebellious spirit that uplifts bodily autonomy, justice, and care, Sex in Public makes a tantalizing promise: better sex lives and empowerment await, if only we dare to know our sexualities fully, reimagining society as we do.
In the spirit of An Immense World and Soul of an Octopus, an award-winning neuroscientist and veteran horse trainer illuminates the mysteries of equine cognition and behavior, through her own extraordinary bond with a horse named True North.
The bond between horses and humans has been treasured for centuries. Horses have served as aids to civilization, subjects of the earliest art, vehicles for global trade, and extreme athletes. Still, their cognitive processes have remained mysterious, even to the humans who love them.
A Horse’s World is the first book of its kind to explore the fascinating science of how horses think, feel, learn, and connect with their human companions. Neuroscientist and horse trainer Janet Jones provides scientific insight into the miracle of the horse-human connection by revealing:
• Common misconceptions that cause us to fault horses for “misbehaviors” that are normal prey-brain responses
• How horses trade a human-style prefrontal cortex—capable of judgment, manipulation, and complex strategic thinking—for incredible memory that supports excellent intelligence
• The role smell plays in how horses interpret the world
• Evidence of horses’ immense expressive capabilities
Tracing the story of one 1500-pound Dutch Warmblood as he learns how to negotiate the human world, Jones reveals surprising lessons about cross-species communication. Horses have so much to teach us about confidence, courage, and compassion, and yet, the first MRI scan of an equine brain wasn’t completed until 2019. Janet Jones bridges that gap, illuminating the ways that equine cognition differs from our own.
Whether you’re an experienced rider or simply admire equine beauty and grace from afar, A Horse’s World is both a window into horses’ hearts and minds, and an object lesson in how to build mutual trust with those whose internal worlds differ from our own.
Could you be arrested if you let your kids have a few sips of wine with dinner? Is it illegal to lie on your dating profile? Can a python be an emotional support animal?
Most people don’t know the majority of our country’s laws, so they don’t know how to avoid breaking them, what their actual rights are, or when they can seek legal recourse. Lawyer Mike Mandell is here to change that, by answering your most burning legal questions … and some you didn’t even know you had!
Oops… That’s Illegal! is a book of legal insight from a practicing lawyer who’s seen it all. Using the same light-heartedness and humor that made his social account @LawByMike so popular, Mandell covers a wide range of topics from police encounters (Is it illegal to do a U-turn at a DUI checkpoint?) to party fouls (What’s the penalty for streaking?) to legal disputes (Can I sue my own lawyer for doing a bad job?).
Funny, informative, and sprinkled with little-known legal facts throughout, Oops… That’s Illegal! is sure to help even the most upstanding citizens when they come face-to-face with their next legal dilemma.
“Takes us beyond the familiar New York papers and editors to a whole continent bursting with the thirst for news. A wonderful read.” —Andrew Pettegree, coauthor of The Library
No society had ever generated so much ink and paper in so little time. Between the Revolutionary War and the dawn of the twentieth century, the number of American newspapers increased five hundredfold. In Empire of Ink, Alex Wright tells the story of how an unruly young democracy found its voice—shaped by the interplay of new technologies, bold public policies, and a distinctly American zeal for free expression that unleashed the greatest outpouring of print the world had ever seen.
It was a wild, boisterous time—populated by gunslinging editors, tramp printers, zealous reformers, brilliant inventors, and literal snake-oil salesmen. Together, they transformed journalism, built a new industry, and helped forge the nation’s character. By century’s end, this freewheeling press had begun to give way to news syndicates, wire services, and corporate interests. Wealthy media barons seized on new technologies and economies of scale to consolidate power—shaping the mass media that would define the twentieth century.
Vividly bringing a pivotal chapter in American history to life, Empire of Ink reveals how the nation’s age-old struggles over truth, technology, and power continue to echo into today’s digital age.