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Fiction for Adults

From cli-fi & lab lit to Indigenous Futurism & forensic thrillers, this category covers stories, novels & other fiction books written for general adult audiences.

 

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I. Muslim Scientists & the History of Science in the Islamic World

This sub-genre of contemporary realistic fiction features stories about scientists at work. This is not science fiction. Quite often, the authors are working STEM professionals in the areas they write about. For more about the genre of lab lit, see our blog on the subject here. 

  1. 1001 Inventions: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Civilization: Official Companion to the 1001 Inventions Exhibition, edited by Salim Al-Hassani
  2. The House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance, by Jim Al-Khalili
  3. Maryam Mirzakhani: Queen of Mathematics, by Pardis Bahmani and Maedeh Ghorbani
  4. Voyage Through Time: Walks of Life to the Nobel Prize, by Ahmed Zewail
  5. First Scientist: Ibn Al-Haytham, by Bradley Steffens
  6. Cosmic Anger: Abdus Salam — The First Muslim Nobel Scientist, by Gordon Fraser
  7. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane, by S. Frederick Starr, Kevin Stillwell, et al. (available only on Audible at this time)
  8. Lost History: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers, and Artists, by Michael Morgan
  9. Al-Khwarizmi: The Beginnings of Algebra (History of Science and Philosophy in Classical Islam), by Roshdi Rashed
  10. Eminent Muslim Scientists, by Sayed Fakhar-e-Alam Naqvi

II. Biographies of STEM Professionals with Disabilities

  1. Privileged Hands, by Geerat J. Vermeij
  2. Thinking in Pictures, Expanded Edition: My Life with Autism, by Temple Grandin
  3. Stephen Hawking: A Memoir of Friendship and Physics, by Leonard Mlodinow
  4. My Brief History, by Stephen Hawking
  5. Blind Ambition, by Patricia Walsh
  6. The Autistic Brain, by Temple Grandin and Richard Pane
  7. A Walk in My Moccasins: Memoirs of a Deaf Physician, by Justus Peters
  8. Silence of the Spheres: The Deaf Experience in the History of Science, by Harry G. Lang
  9. Seeking Vision: A Memoir of a Legally Blind Doctor of Nuclear Physics Who Dared to Envision Possibilities, by Zohra Aziza Baccouche and Ella Baccouche
  10. Rise Above: How One Man’s Search for Mobility Helped the World Get Moving, by Ralph W. Braun

III. Diverse Perspectives on Medicine

  1. Twice as Hard: The Stories of Black Women Who Fought to Become Physicians, from the Civil War to the 21st Century, by Jasmine Brown
  2. Becoming Dr. Q: My Journey from Migrant Farm Worker to Brain Surgeon, by Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa and Mim Eichler Rivas
  3. Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine, by Damon Tweedy
  4. The Scalpel and the Silver Bear: The First Navajo Woman Surgeon Combines Western Medicine and Traditional Healing, by Lori Arviso Alvord and Elizabeth Cohen Van Pelt
  5. In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor’s Journey in the Saudi Kingdom, by Qanta Ahmed
  6. Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance, by Atul Gawande
  7. Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology, by Dierdre Cooper Owens
  8. Smearing the Queer: Medical Bias in the Treatment of Gay Men, by Michael Scarce
  9. Bodies and Barriers: Queer Activists on Health, by Adrian Shanker
  10. The Health of Newcomers: Immigration, Health Policy, and Case for Global Solidarity,by Patricia Illingworth and Wendy E. Parmet

IV. Diversifying the Space Program

  1. In the Spirit of Ronald E. McNair: Astronaut, American Hero, by Carl S. McNair
  2. We Could Not Fail: The First African Americans in the Space Program, by Richard Paul and Steven Moss
  3. Reaching for the Moon: The Autobiography of NASA Mathematician Katherine Johnson, by Katherine Johnson
  4. From Farmworker to Astronaut / De Campesino a Astronauta: My Path to the Stars / Mi viaje a las estrellas (English and Spanish Edition), by Jose M. Hernandez
  5. Chasing Space, by Leland Melvin
  6. Handprints on Hubble: An Astronaut’s Story of Invention, by Kathryn D. Sullivan
  7. Rise of the Rocket Girls, by Nathalia Holt
  8. Rocket Girl: The Story of Mary Sherman Morgan, America’s First Female Rocket Scientist, by George D. Morgan and Ashley Stroupe
  9. Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories, by Nichelle Nichols (read in conjunction with watching the 2021 documentary Woman In Motion: Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek and the Remaking of NASA)
  10. NASA and the Long Civil Rights Movement, edited by Brian C. Odom and Stephen P. Waring

V. Biographies of African Americans in STEM

  1. One Blood: The Death and Resurrection of Charles R. Drew, by Spencie Love
  2. Odyssey in Climate Modeling, Global Warming, and Advising Five Presidents, by Warren Washington
  3. Accept No Limitations: A Black Woman Encounters Corporate America, by Marjorie L. Kimbrough
  4. Beyond Banneker: Black Mathematicians and the Paths to Excellence, by Erica N. Walker
  5. Hidden Women: The African-American Mathematicians of NASA Who Helped America win the Space Race, by Rebecca Rissman
  6. Partners of the Heart: Vivien Thomas and His Work with Alfred Blalock, An Autobiography, by Dr. Vivien Thomas
  7. Black Women Scientists in the United States, by Wini Warren
  8. Black Apollo of Science: The Life of Ernest Everett Just, by Kenneth R. Manning
  9. Think Black, by Clyde W. Ford
  10. Find a Trail or Blaze One: A Biography of Dr. Reatha Clark King, by Kate Leibfried

VI. Math for Social Justice

  1. Radical Equations: Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project, by Robert P. Moses and Charles E. Cobb, Jr.
  2. Radical Equations: Math Literacy and Civil Rights, by Robert P. Moses and Charles E. Cobb, Jr.
  3. Dear Citizen Math: How Math Class Can Inspire a More Rational and Respectful Society, by Karim Ani
  4. Choosing to See: A Framework for Equity in the Math Classroom, by Pamela Seda and Kyndall Brown
  5. Mathematics for Human Flourishing, by Francis Su and Christopher Jackson
  6. Reading And Writing The World With Mathematics: Toward a Pedagogy for Social Justice (Critical Social Thought series), by Eric Gutstein
  7. Mathematics for Social Justice, by Gizem Karaali and Lily S. Khadjavi
  8. Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers, by Eric (Rico) Gutstein and Bob Peterson
  9. Mathematics for Social Justice, by Catherine A. Buell and Bonnie Shulman
  10. Engaging in Culturally Relevant Math Tasks: Fostering Hope in the Middle and High School Classroom (Corwin Mathematics Series)

VII. Inventors & Technologists of Color

  1. It Began with a Dream, by Dr. Gladys B. West
  2. Overnight Code: The Life of Raye Montague, the Woman Who Revolutionized Naval Engineering, by Paige Bowers and David Montague
  3. Black Software, by by Charlton D. McIlwain
  4. Breakthrough! by Jim Murphy
  5. More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech, by Meredith Broussard
  6. Lucean Arthur Headen: The Making of a Black Inventor and Entrepreneur, by by Jill D. Snide
  7. Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation: Granville T. Woods, Lewis H. Latimer, and Shelby J. Davidson (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology series), by Rayvon Fouché
  8. Technology and the African-American Experience, by Bruce Sinclair
  9. Los Inventores (Spare Parts): Cuatro adolescentes inmigrantes, un robot y la batalla por el sueño americano, Spanish Edition, by Joshua Davis (Author), Enrique Mercado (Translator). In English: Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream
  10. A Hammer in Their Hands: A Documentary History of Technology and the African-American Experience, edited by Carroll W. Pursell

VIII. Books By & About LGBTQ Scientists

  1. Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist, by Ben Barres
  2. Sally Ride: America’s First Woman in Space, by Lynn Sherr
  3. The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred, by Chanda Prescot-Weinstein
  4. The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking), by Katie Mack
  5. Alan Turing: The Enigma, by Andrew Hodges
  6. Gay Is Good: The Life and Letters of Gay Rights Pioneer Franklin Kameny, by Frank Kameny, ed. Michael Long
  7. Queer Feminist Science Studies: A Reader, Edited by Cyd Cipolla, Kristina Gupta, David A. Rubin and Angela Willey
  8. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, by Karen Barad
  9. Who Cares about Particle Physics? Making Sense of the Higgs Boson, the Large Hadron Collider and CERN, by Pauline Gagnon
  10. LGBT+ Inclusivity in Physics and Astronomy: A Best Practices Guide, by Nicole Ackerman, Timothy Atherton, Adrian Ray Avalani, Christine A. Berven, Tanmoy Laskar, Ansel Neunzert, Diana S. Parno, Michael Ramsey-Musolf

IX. STEM Across the Globe

  1. The Great Indian Mathematicians, by Gaurav Tekriwal
  2. Madame Wu Chien-Shiung: The First Lady of Physics Research, by Tsai-Chien Chiang and Caijian Jiang
  3. Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science, by Jim Al-Khalili
  4. Engineering Asia: Technology, Colonial Development, and the Cold War Order (SOAS Studies in Modern and Contemporary Japan), editedby Hiromi Mizuno, Aaron S. Moore, John DiMoia, and Christopher Gerteis
  5. The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis, by Amitav Ghosh
  6. Geopolitics, Culture, and the Scientific Imaginary in Latin America, edited by María del Pilar Blanco and Joanna Page
  7. Beyond Imported Magic: Essays on Science, Technology, and Society in Latin America (Inside Technology), by Eden Medina, Ivan da Costa Marques, et al.
  8. Technology of the Oppressed: Inequity and the Digital Mundane in Favelas of Brazil (The Information Society Series), Part of: The Information Society, by David Nemer
  9. Information and Communications Technology in STEM Education: An African Perspective, edited by Umesh Ramnarain and Mdutshekelwa Ndlovu
  10. The Global Engineers: Building a Safe and Equitable World Together (Sustainable Development Goals Series), by Evan Thomas

X. African Contributions to STEM

  1. Black Rice: the African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas, by Judith A. Carney
  2. Holding The Knife’s Edge: Journeys of Black Female Scientists, by Thato Motlhalamme and Evodia Setati
  3. Unbound: A Memoir, by Wangari Muta Maathai
  4. The Yoruba Number System. In Blacks and Science: Ancient And Modern, by Claudia Zaslavsky
  5. Capture the Sun, by Joshua Zulu
  6. African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design, by Ron Eglash
  7. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
  8. Mining Language: Racial Thinking, Indigenous Knowledge, and Colonial Metallurgy in the Early Modern Iberian World, by Allison Margaret Bigelow
  9. Imhotep the Physician: Archetype of the Great Man, by Charles S. Finch
  10. Decolonising Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in an Age of Technocolonialism: Recentring African Indigenous Knowledge and Belief Systems, edited by Artwell Nhemachena, Nokuthula Hlabangane, and Joseph Z. Z. Matowanyika

XI. Disabilities Visibility in STEM

  1. Creating a Culture of Accessibility in the Sciences, by Mahadeo A. Sukhai and Chelsea E. Mohler
  2. Perspectives of STEM Students with Disabilities: Our Journeys, Communities, & Big Ideas, edited by Scott Bellman and Sheryl Burgstahler
  3. The Challenged Scientists: Disabilities and the Triumph of Excellence, by Robert A. Weisgerber
  4. Succeeding as a Student in the STEM Fields with an Invisible Disability, by Christy Oslund
  5. Making Disability Modern: Design Histories, edited by Bess Williamson and Elizabeth Guffey
  6. Disability in Science Fiction: Representations of Technology as Cure, edited by Kathryn Allan
  7. Genetics, Disability, and Deafness, edited by John Vickrey Van Cleve
  8. Including Students With Disabilities in Advanced Science Classes, by Lori A. Howard and Elizabeth A. Potts
  9. Basics About Disabilities and Science and Engineering Education, by Ruta Sevo
  10. All You Need to Know About Disability is on Star Trek, by Ilana S. Lehmann

XII. Cosmic Perspectives from Diverse Physicists & Astronomers

  1. The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe, by Stephon Alexander
  2. A Quantum Life: My Unlikely Journey from the Streets to the Stars,by Hakeem Oluseyi and Joshua Horwitz
  3. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, by Neil deGrasse Tyson
  4. Not Necessarily Rocket Science: A Beginner’s Guide to Life in the Space Age, by Kellie Gerardi
  5. Clues to the Cosmos, by Shoshini Ghose
  6. Beyond Einstein, by Michio Kaku
  7. The Sky Is for Everyone: Women Astronomers in Their Own Words,edited by Virdinia Trimble and David A. Weintraub
  8. The Universe in a Nutshell, by Stephen Hawking
  9. A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman: A Memoir, by Lindy Elkins-Tanton
  10. Lost in Math, by Sabine Hossenfelder
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