Deep Dives (DDL Summer 2026)

Updated May 17, 2026
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At home : a short history of private life
Bryson, Bill.
Paper Book
From one of the most beloved authors of our  time--more than six million copies of his books have been sold in this country alone--a fascinating excursion into the history behind the place we call home. "Houses aren't refuges from history. They are where history ends up."  ...
Black in blues : how a color tells the story of my people
Perry, Imani
Paper Book
A "vast, multifaceted and enchanting" (Minneapolis Star-Tribune) meditation on the color blue and its fascinating role in Black history and culture, from National Book Award winner Imani Perry, "the most important interpreter of Black life in our time" (Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.) Throughout...
The bookshop : a history of the American bookstore
Friss, Evan
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Goodreads Choice Award Winner in History & Biography One of Time's 100 Must-Read Books of 2024 "A spirited defense of this important, odd and odds-defying American retail category." --The New York Times...
Breath : the new science of a lost art
Nestor, James
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2020 Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR   "A fascinating scientific, cultural, spiritual and evolutionary history of the way humans breathe--and how we've all been...
The breath of the gods : the history and future of the wind
Winchester, Simon
Paper Book
"As our climate changes, the force of the wind is set to grow. By looking to the past and the future, Winchester examines the twinned possibilities alive in this bluster: the power of the wind to tear our world apart and its ability to help us travel farther and do more." --...
Butts : a backstory
Radke, Heather
Paper Book
"Lively and thorough, Butts is the best kind of nonfiction." --Esquire A "carefully researched and reported work of cultural history" (The New York Times) that explores how one body part has influenced the female--and human--experience for centuries, and...
Challenger : a true story of heroism and disaster on the edge of space
Higginbotham, Adam
Paper Book
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction * Winner of the Kirkus Nonfiction Prize * Shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * A New York Times Notable Book NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "Stunning...A heart-pounding...
Cue the sun : the invention of reality TV
Nussbaum, Emily
Paper Book
The rollicking saga of reality television, a "sweeping" (The Washington Post) cultural history of America's most influential, most divisive artistic phenomenon, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker writer--"a must-read for anyone interested in television or popular culture"...
Empire of pain : the secret history of the Sackler dynasty
Keefe, Patrick Radden
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR * A grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin. From...
Entangled life : how fungi make our worlds, change our minds & shape our futures
Sheldrake, Merlin
Paper Book
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WITH OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE A "brilliant [and] entrancing" (The Guardian) journey into the hidden lives of fungi--the great connectors of the living world--and their astonishing and intimate roles in human life, with...
Everything is tuberculosis : the history and persistence of our deadliest infection
Green, John
Paper Book
#1 New York Times bestseller * #1 Washington Post bestseller * #1 Indie Bestseller * USA Today Bestseller John Green, award-winning author and passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world's...
The gales of November : the untold story of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Bacon, John U.
Paper Book
For three decades following World War II, the Great Lakes overtook Europe as the epicenter of global economic strength. The region was the beating heart of the world economy, possessing all the power and prestige Silicon Valley does today. And no ship represented the apex of the American Century...
How flowers made our world : the story of nature's revolutionaries
Haskell, David George
Paper Book
"A work of real passion."--The New York Times "A seamless melding of poetry and science."--Wall Street Journal An exquisite exploration of the power of flowers, placing them at the center of the story of how evolution created the world we know today
The icepick surgeon : murder, fraud, sabotage, piracy, and other dastardly deeds perpetrated in the name of science
Kean, Sam
Paper Book
From a New York Times bestselling author comes the gripping, untold history of science's darkest secrets.  "A fascinating book [that] deserves a wide audience." --Publishers Weekly, starred review Science is a force for...
The joy of sweat : the strange science of perspiration
Everts, Sarah
Paper Book
Sweating may be one of our weirdest biological functions, but it's also one of our most vital and least understood. In The Joy of Sweat, Sarah Everts delves into its role in the body-and in human history. Why is sweat salty? Why do we sweat when stressed? Why do some people produce...
The library book
Orlean, Susan
Paper Book
A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICK A WASHINGTON POST TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR * A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER and NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 "A constant pleasure to read...Everybody who loves books...
London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth
Keefe, Patrick Radden
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the bestselling, prizewinning author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain, a spellbinding account of a family devastated by the sudden death of their nineteen-year-old son, only to discover that he had created a secret life which...
The mosquito : a human history of our deadliest predator
Winegard, Timothy C.
Paper Book
**The instant New York Times bestseller.** *An international bestseller.* "Hugely impressive, a major work."--NPR A pioneering and groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction that offers a dramatic new perspective on the history of humankind, showing...
Murderland : crime and bloodlust in the time of serial killers
Fraser, Caroline
Paper Book
An Edgar Award winner for True Crime * A National Bestseller * A Washington Post Notable Book * Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, Forbes, NPR, Vulture, Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, Slate, Newsweek, New York...
Nexus : a brief history of information networks from the Stone Age to AI
Harari, Yuval N.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the author of Sapiens comes the groundbreaking story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world. "Strikingly original . . . A historian whose arguments operate on the scale of millennia has managed to capture the...
Our moon : how Earth's celestial companion transformed the planet, guided evolution, and made us who we are
Boyle, Rebecca
Paper Book
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * "A riveting feat of science writing that recasts that most familiar of celestial objects into something eerily extraordinary, pivotal to our history, and awesome in the original sense of the word."--Ed Yong, New York Times...
Replaceable you : adventures in human anatomy
Roach, Mary
Paper Book
The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what's available--sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet...
Scotland Yard : a history of the London police force's most infamous murder cases
Read, Simon
Paper Book
A riveting true-crime history of London's first modern police force as told through its most notorious murder cases. The idea of "Scotland Yard" is steeped in atmospheric stories of foggy London streets, murder by lamplight, and fiendish killers pursued by gentleman detectives....
The secret history of food : strange but true stories about the origins of everything we eat
Siegel, Matt
Paper Book
An irreverent, surprising, and entirely entertaining look at the little-known history surrounding the foods we know and love. Is Italian olive oil really Italian, or are we dipping our bread in lamp oil? Why are we masochistically drawn to foods that can hurt us, like hot peppers?...
The secret history of home economics : how trailblazing women harnessed the power of home and changed the way we live
Dreilinger, Danielle
Paper Book
The term "home economics" may conjure traumatic memories of lopsided hand-sewn pillows or sunken muffins. But common conception obscures the story of the revolutionary science of better living. The field exploded opportunities for women in the twentieth century by reducing domestic work and...
Underland : a deep time journey
Macfarlane, Robert
Paper Book
In Underland, Robert Macfarlane delivers an epic exploration of the Earth's underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself. Traveling through the dizzying expanse of geologic time--from prehistoric art in Norwegian sea caves, to the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap...
Waste wars : the wild afterlife of your trash
Clapp, Alexander
Paper Book
A globe-trotting work of relentless investigative reporting, this is the first major book to expose the catastrophic reality of the multi-billion-dollar global garbage trade.                            ...
Why we swim
Tsui, Bonnie
Paper Book
A Time Magazine Must-Read Book of 2020 A Best Book of the Season: BuzzFeed * Bustle * San Francisco Chronicle A Best Book of the Year: NPR's Book Concierge * Washington Independent Review of Books...
A world appears : a journey into consciousness
Pollan, Michael
Paper Book
The Instant New York Times Bestseller "Pollan's real genius--the word is not too strong--remains intact. That is his uncanny ability to scent the direction in which the culture is headed. He did it with food and psychedelics, and now, though A World Appears focuses on...

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