Nonfiction in Green

Love a Mary Roach. Her examination of humans at war “tackles the science behind some of a soldier’s most challenging adversaries—panic, exhaustion, heat, ​flies, ​noise,” and looks at the scientists who are trying to create answers to all of it. Want to know why a zipper creates a problem for a sniper? How a wedding gown is like a bomb suit? Why shrimp are dangerous to sailors? Check this out.

We know a little about women baseball, basketball, and soccer players, but what about extreme sports? The sections of this read like energy drinks from the ’90s, with titles like “Maximum Sky,” “Extreme Ocean,” and “Radical Rides.” Each section highlights three different women, like ultrarunner Courtney Dauwalter and racing driver Sneha Sharma.

Irby’s third book of essays continues her themes of blunt observational humor and memoir. This book chronicles scenes from her life post-marriage, and her move to a more country than urban setting, as she describes herself as a “cheese fry-eating slightly damp Midwest person.” Which many of us can relate to. I love books like this for when I’m stressed. They’re great to dip in and out of, and Irby is a wonderful voice to spend time with.

TW for domestic abuse, which is the central theme of the book. Machado’s innovative memoir chronicles the arc of her unhealthy relationship as she “struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming.” Every section is a different way of writing and viewing the situation, and includes titles like “Dream House as Time Travel,” “Dream House as Memory Palace,” “Dream House as Perpetual Motion Machine.”