Books

The big ideas from popular books, without giving the whole thing away. Get the GIST, then decide if you want the REST.

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27 summaries, page 1 of 2

Book summary All the Colors of the Dark
Chris Whitaker

All the Colors of the Dark

In 1975 Missouri a one-eyed boy saves a girl from abduction and is taken himself, and the friend who refuses to stop looking for him spends decades chasing the truth.

7 min read
Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson

Altered Traits

A science journalist and a neuroscientist sort the hype from the hard evidence to show how meditation can lastingly change who we are.

Neuroscience
Stress
9 min read
Agatha Christie

And Then There Were None

Ten strangers with buried secrets are lured to an island off the Devon coast, where a nursery rhyme begins counting them down one by one.

7 min read
April Henry

Blood Will Tell

A teen search-and-rescue volunteer in Portland becomes the prime suspect in a murder, and his two friends race to clear his name.

7 min read
James Nestor

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art

A journalist plugs his own nose for ten days to show why breathing slowly and through the nose may be one of the most overlooked foundations of health.

Breathwork
Sleep
8 min read
Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski

Burnout

Twin sisters explain why stress stays stuck in the body, why women burn out in a rigged game, and the simple, shared ways to recover.

Stress
Mental Health
8 min read
Emily Nagoski

Come As You Are

Sex educator Emily Nagoski uses the science of accelerators, brakes and context to show women that their sexuality is not broken, only theirs.

Relationships
8 min read
Shanna H. Swan

Count Down

A leading reproductive epidemiologist explains why sperm counts in the West have halved in forty years, what everyday chemicals have to do with it, and what you can change at home.

Hormones
Fertility
9 min read
Anna Lembke

Dopamine Nation

Stanford psychiatrist Anna Lembke explains why chasing pleasure leaves us in pain, and how abstinence, self-binding and honesty restore balance.

Dopamine and Motivation
Mental Health
6 min read
Susan David

Emotional Agility

A Harvard psychologist shows how to face hard feelings, step back from them and act on your values through small, deliberate changes.

Psychology
Mental Health
8 min read
Gregg D. Jacobs

Goodnight Insomnia

Gregg D. Jacobs's six-week, drug-free CBT program retrains thoughts and habits to end chronic insomnia.

Sleep
Mental Health
6 min read
Michael Pollan

How to Change Your Mind

A skeptical journalist explores the science, history and first-hand experience of psychedelics, and what they reveal about the mind, the ego and healing.

Consciousness
Mental Health
8 min read
Sandra Kahn and Paul Ehrlich

Jaws: The Story of a Hidden Epidemic

An orthodontist and an evolutionary biologist argue that modern life is shrinking our jaws, crowding our teeth and narrowing our airways, and that parents can do something about it early.

Sleep
Parenting
9 min read
Liz Moore

Long Bright River

A Philadelphia patrol officer hunts for her missing, opioid-addicted sister while someone is strangling women on the streets she polices.

8 min read
Viktor Frankl

Man's Search for Meaning

A Viennese psychiatrist's account of surviving the Nazi camps, and the idea he carried out of them: people can bear almost anything if they have a reason to.

Psychology
Mental Health
6 min read
Andrew Huberman

Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body

Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman's 47-protocol field manual for sleep, exercise, stress, food, light, focus and personal growth, built on one rule: behavior first, molecules second.

Sleep
Fitness
8 min read
Alex Berenson

Tell Your Children

A former New York Times reporter argues that marijuana causes psychosis and violence and that legalization has outrun the science, a case many experts dispute.

Mental Health
Psychology
8 min read
Jonathan Haidt

The Anxious Generation

Jonathan Haidt argues that smartphones, social media and overprotective parenting have rewired childhood since about 2010, and lays out a collective plan to give kids back a play-based childhood.

Mental Health
Parenting
9 min read
Kiersten Modglin

The Arrangement

A wife proposes that she and her husband each date a stranger once a week to save their marriage, and the rules they set are broken almost at once, with terrible results.

7 min read
Satchin Panda

The Circadian Code

Salk Institute scientist Satchin Panda argues that when you eat, sleep, see light and move matters as much as what you do, and shows how to reset the body's internal clocks.

Sleep
Nutrition
10 min read
Jonathan Haidt

The Coddling of the American Mind

Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt argue that three bad ideas and a culture of overprotection are leaving a generation of students more fragile, more anxious and more divided.

Psychology
Education
8 min read
Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael E. Long

The Molecule of More

A psychiatrist and a writer show how dopamine, the brain's chemical of anticipation, drives our love lives, ambitions, addictions, creativity and politics, and why lasting happiness means balancing it with the chemicals of the present.

Dopamine and Motivation
Neuroscience
11 min read
Dr. Jason Fung

The Obesity Code

A kidney specialist argues that obesity is driven by insulin, not calories, and that eating real food less often, with regular fasting, is the lasting fix.

Nutrition
Hormones
8 min read
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Real Anthony Fauci

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s heavily footnoted and widely disputed case that Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates and the drug industry put profit and power ahead of public health, from AIDS to COVID-19.

Politics and History
Public Health
8 min read