Deep Dives (DDL Summer 2026)

Updated May 17, 2026
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DeWitt District Library DeWitt District Library
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Deep Dives (DDL Summer 2026)

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Air-borne : the hidden history of the life we breathe
Zimmer, Carl
Paper Book
One of Smithsonian Magazine's Ten Best Science Books of 2025 The fascinating, untold story of the air we breathe, the hidden life it contains, and invisible dangers that can turn the world upside down Every day we draw in two thousand gallons of air-...
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...
Blood : the science, medicine, and mythology of menstruation
Gunter, Jen
Paper Book
"This book is the brilliant and long needed corrective that we have waited for, since the first time we stuffed a box of pads into a three-ply paper bag and slunk out of a pharmacy. Never again." --Samantha Bee New York Times bestselling author of The...
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...
The devil reached toward the sky : an oral history of the making & unleashing of the atomic bomb
Graff, Garrett M.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "Magisterial...A stunning account that brings to the fore the nuclear saga's surreal combination of ingenuity, fate, and terror." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) * "If you are an intelligent person, or at the very least think you are, you have to...
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...
The genius bat : the secret life of the only flying mammal
Yovel, Yossi (Ecologist and neurobiologist)
Paper Book
"[A] wonderful book." --Nature "A mind-opening adventure." --Natural History An awe-inspiring tour of bat world by the world's leading expert With nearly 1500 species, bats account for more than twenty percent of...
Ghostland : an American history in haunted places
Dickey, Colin
Paper Book
One of NPR's Great Reads of 2016 "A lively assemblage and smart analysis of dozens of haunting stories... absorbing...[and] intellectually intriguing."--The New York Times Book Review An intellectual feast for fans of offbeat history, Ghostland <...
The Great Shadow: A History of How Sickness Shapes What We Do, Think, Believe, and Buy
Bauer, Susan Wise
Paper Book
"Lively, informative ...offers wide-ranging evidence of alternative frameworks for disease." ―Science "Allows readers to practically experience firsthand how humans have adapted to and dealt with disease throughout history...necessary and timely...e...
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 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...
A Resistance History of the United States
Stoermer, Tad
Paper Book
The United States was shaped by resistance-but not in the way we've been taught. The Revolution did not secure liberty; it opened the door to either liberty or oppression, where only white men enjoyed all of the benefits and protections of citizenship. In A Resistance History of the United States,...
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....
Silk : a world history
Prasad, Aarathi
Paper Book
A Smithsonian Magazine Best History Book of 2024 A Library Journal Selection for Best Nonfiction of 2024 A Next Big Idea Book Club Must-Read for April "Aarathi Prasad's Silk: A World History is a love song to this protean material. . . . Beautiful [and] fascinating." --Wall...
Sing like fish : how sound rules life under water
Kingdon, Amorina
Paper Book
A captivating exploration of how underwater animals tap into sound to survive, and a clarion call for humans to address the ways we invade these critical soundscapes--from an award-winning science writer "Sing Like Fish is that rare book that makes you see the world...
Slither : how nature's most maligned creatures illuminate our world
Hall, Stephen S.
Paper Book
In this "wise and wondrous" (David Quammen) exploration, a science writer reintroduces readers to The Snake, encouraging our initial reaction to the slithery creature to be one of awe rather than disgust. For millennia, depictions of snakes as...
Underland : a deep time journey
Macfarlane, Robert
Paper Book
Hailed as "the great nature writer of this generation" (Wall Street Journal), Robert Macfarlane is the celebrated author of books about the intersections of the human and the natural realms. In Underland, he delivers his masterpiece: an epic exploration of the Earth's underworlds as they exist in...
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.                            ...
What the chicken knows : a new appreciation of the world's most familiar bird
Montgomery, Sy
Paper Book
A charming and eye-opening exploration of the special relationship between humans and chickens from Sy Montgomery, "one of our finest chroniclers of the natural world" (The New York Times). For more than two decades, Sy Montgomery--whose The Soul of an...
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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