Summer Reads: Catch up on hot topics with these public health sizzlers

Kim Krisberg

Warm weather and long days call for summer reading. Whether lounging on a cozy couch or under a beach umbrella, kick back with these new books.

Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity

Sander van der Linden, PhD

Misinformation is everywhere. In fact, many public health experts and advocates consider it one of the nation’s — and the world’s — most urgent health threats. In his new book, University of Cambridge professor van der Linden dives into how misinformation works, explaining how it influences our thoughts, how it spreads across social networks and what people can do to inoculate themselves against it.

2023, W.W. Norton & Company, 368 pages

The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America

Saket Soni

Soni, executive director of Resilience Workforce, recounts the true story of hundreds of immigrant workers from India who were trapped into forced labor camps in Mississippi, lured by recruiters who had promised them green cards and good jobs rebuilding oil rigs along the hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast. In 2006, Soni, a community organizer, received an anonymous call from one of the trapped workers. His book tells the story of their escape and march to Washington, D.C.

2023, Algonquin Books, 368 pages

You or Someone You Love: Reflections from an Abortion Doula

Hannah Matthews

Matthews — an abortion care worker, doula and reproductive rights activist — writes about abortion experiences, including her own, and offers a glimpse inside the reality of providing abortion care in a country that is increasingly hostile to reproductive health and autonomy. She also shares advice on how to support and protect people who are seeking abortions.

2023, Atria Books, 352 pages

How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America

Priva Fielding-Singh, PhD

Inequality often manifests in the food we eat. Fielding-Singh, a sociologist and ethnographer, brings readers into the homes of dozens of families from varying educational, economic, ethnic and racial backgrounds to explore how and why people eat the way they do. She explores work to curb food insecurity and shows how income not only impacts access to food, but the meaning of food itself.

2023, Little, Brown Spark, 352 pages

Taking Care: The Story of Nursing and Its Power to Change Our World

Sarah Di Gregorio, MA

Journalist Di Gregorio dives deep into the history of nursing, with stories from nurses, past and present. The book combines storytelling with detailed reporting, pays homage to nurses, and calls for changing how we value nurses and their expertise. Di Gregorio notes that nurses have always been vital to human existence yet are often underappreciated.

2023, Harper, 320 pages

Young Queer America: Real Stories and Faces of LGBTQ+ Youth

Maxwell Poth

Poth, a photographer and founder of Project Contrast, a nonprofit that amplifies LGBTQ+ youth storytelling, shares the voices and portraits of 73 LGBTQ+ kids and teens from 15 states. The book features youth stories — in their own words — about their coming-out journeys, difficulties and finding connection and hope in the queer community.

2023, Chronicle Book, 288 pages

Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People

Tracy Kidder, MFA

Kidder — author of the Pulitzer Prizing-winning “Mountains Beyond Mountains” about global public health leader Paul Farmer — chronicles the passion and mission of Jim O’Connell, a Boston physician who started a program to provide health care to people who are homeless. Kidder spent five years following O’Connell and his colleagues as they cared for thousands of patients, creating what the doctor called “a system of friends.”

2023, Random House, 320 pages

Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on Health in America

Linda Villarosa

A Pulitzer Prize finalist, Villarosa exposes the forces in U.S. health care and American society that cause Black people to “live sicker and die quicker” than their white peers. The book explores the intersections between racism and poor health and the social and historical factors that contribute to inequitable care. Villarosa also shares stories from people who experience the harmful impacts in their daily lives.

2023, Anchor, 288 pages

Poverty, by America

Matthew Desmond, PhD

Desmond — a sociologist and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Evicted” — draws on history, research and his own reporting to show how rich Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people in poverty. The book also offers new ways of thinking about poverty as well as possible solutions, calling on readers to become “poverty abolitionists” and engage in the politics of ending poverty.

2023, Crown, 304 pages

The People’s Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine

Ricardo Nuila, MD

Nuila follows the lives of five uninsured people in Houston, Texas, who seek help at the county hospital where he works. The patients include Stephen, who is facing insurmountable costs after a cancer diagnosis; Christian, a young college student who cannot find help for a bad knee; and Ebonie, a young mom with a high-risk pregnancy. Nuila’s narrative highlights the direct connection between good insurance and getting quality care.

2023, Scribner, 384 pages

Climate Optimism: Celebrating Systemic Change Around the World

Zahra Biabani

Biabani, a youth climate activist, offers readers and fellow advocates tips for staying optimistic in the face of climate change. The book includes a review of promising climate solutions, practical advice for changing thoughts about climate change and interviews with sustainability activists.

2023, Mango, 256 pages

APHA President’s Pick: Love in the Library

Maggie Tokuda-Hall

This picture book for children — a pick from APHA President Chris Chanyasulkit, PhD, MPH — takes place after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in a U.S. internment camp for Japanese Americans. Readers learn about the camps through the story of Tokuda-Hall’s real-life grandparents, Tama and George. Tama worked in the camp’s small library, where George visited daily and checked out books.

2022, Candlewick, 40 pages, for ages 8-11