Library Guides: Unrequired Reading: Home

Real Dawgs Love to Read!

Many of the print titles in this sampling of HSL's nonrequired reading collection are also available as eBooks and in some cases audiobooks. Please check our library catalog.

Recently Added Titles

On Call by Anthony Fauci #1 New York Times Bestseller The memoir by the doctor who became a beacon of hope for millions through the COVID pandemic, and whose six-decade career in high-level public service put him in the room with seven presidents "An eventful autobiography [and] a classic American story...Gripping."--The Washington Post "One of the most consequential and most prominent [careers] in American medicine in the past fifty years."--Jerome Groopman, The New Yorker Anthony Fauci is arguably the most famous - and most revered - doctor in the world today. His role guiding America sanely and calmly through Covid (and through the torrents of Trump) earned him the trust of millions during one of the most terrifying periods in modern American history, but this was only the most recent of the global epidemics in which Dr. Fauci played a major role. His crucial role in researching HIV and bringing AIDS into sympathetic public view and his leadership in navigating the Ebola, SARS, West Nile, and anthrax crises, make him truly an American hero. His memoir reaches back to his boyhood in Brooklyn, New York, and carries through decades of caring for critically ill patients, navigating the whirlpools of Washington politics, and behind-the-scenes advising and negotiating with seven presidents on key issues from global AIDS relief to infectious disease  preparedness at home. ON CALL will be an inspiration for readers who admire and are grateful to him and for those who want to emulate him in public service. He is the embodiment of "speaking truth to power," with dignity and results.
Publication Date: 2024
Women Physician Pioneers of The 1960s by Susan E. Detweiler Women Physician Pioneers of the 1960s is a biographical account of a group of classmates from UCSF medical school whose lives and careers were tracked by social scientist Lillian Cartwright for 50 years.
Publication Date: 2022
Passing for Human by Liana Finck A visually arresting graphic memoir about a young artist struggling against what's expected of her as a woman, and learning to accept her true self, from an acclaimed New Yorker cartoonist.
Publication Date: 2018
Ejaculate Responsibly by Gabrielle Stanley Blair Gabrielle Blair offers a provocative reframing of the abortion issue in post-Roe America.
Publication Date: 2022
Skid Road by Josephine Ensign A timely story in light of the ongoing health care reform debate, the affordable housing crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic, the stories from Skid Road illuminate issues surrounding poverty and homelessness throughout America.
Publication Date: 2021
The Doc and the Duchess: The Life and Legacy of George H. A. Clowes by Alexander W. Clowes
Publication Date: 2016
Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes through Indigenous Science by Jessica Hernandez An Indigenous environmental scientist breaks down why western conservationism isn't working--and offers Indigenous models informed by case studies, personal stories, and family histories that center the voices of Latin American women and land protectors.
Publication Date: 2022
White Fragility: Why it's so Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality. In this "vital, necessary, and beautiful book" (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and "allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to 'bad people' (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo examines how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.
Publication Date: 2018
Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor's Reflections on Race and Medicine by Damon Tweedy In this powerful, moving, and deeply empathic book, Tweedy explores the challenges confronting black doctors, and the disproportionate health burdens faced by black patients, ultimately seeking a way forward to better treatment and more compassionate care.
Publication Date: 2016
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore
Publication Date: 2017