60 Must-Read Books of the Summer
What are you in the mood to read this summer? This year boasts an unusual volume of stories exploring the thrilling and thorny stuff that makes us human. We think of them as books that make a difference—every one of them worth the plunge!
By The Reading Room
Photo: Courtesy of publisher
58 of 70
Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War
By Mary Roach
288 pages;
W. W. Norton & Company
Our most consistently entertaining science journalist wanders into the "corners and crannies" of military technology. Roach goes where other writers wouldn't dare (witness her classic take on cadavers, Stiff), here eyeing "the parts no one makes movies about—not the killing but the keeping alive." And her search produces images—a kind of technopoetry—that are hard to forget: a cannon firing chickens into airplanes, urethra replacement surgery, a "brief history of stink bombs."
Published 06/13/2016
