If you’re in need of a new book to read in honor of National Book Day, or if you just need some inspiration for your summer reading, check out some of these recent titles by WINGS WorldQuest fellows!
1) Lab Girl by Hope Jahren (2016)
Lab Girl is Hope Jahren’s memoir about growing up in Minnesota and pursuing a career in science. The book is a National Best Seller and was listed as one of the best books of 2016 by TIME and Entertainment Weekly. Jahren was also named one of TIME’s “Most Influential People.”
“Jahren’s literary bent renders dense material digestible, and lyrical, in fables that parallel personal history,” according to The New York Times.
Jahren will receive the WINGS 2016 Women of Discovery Leadership Award.
2) Blue Hope: Exploring and Caring for Earth’s Magnificent Ocean, Sylvia Earle (2014)
Blue Hope is a book of seven essays by legendary oceanographer Sylvia Earle, featured alongside a composite of stunning photographs of the sea and marine life. It’s an inspirational call to action, asking readers to help protect the ocean.
Earle was TIME Magazine’s first Hero of the Planet in 1998. She received our Women of Discovery Sea Award in 2003.
3) Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman To Ski Solo Across The Southern Ice, Felicity Aston (2014)
Felicity Aston is the first woman – and the third person in history – to ski across Anarctica alone. She managed the feat in just 59 days.
Alone in Antarctica is her first-person account of her 2012 journey, during which time she had no human contact whatsoever. She was the recipient of our 2014 Women of Discovery Courage Award. She is also the author of Call of the White: Taking the world to the South Pole, published in 2011.
4) My Path Leads to Tibet, Sabriye Tenberken (2013)
Sabriye Tenberken traveled on horseback throughout Tibet to find blind children who’d been outcasted and left to die. She, herself blind since the age of 13, created a Braille alphabet in Tibetan and set up a school for those children. She also founded Braille Without Borders. Washington Post Book World called her “genuinely inspiring” and said she “demonstrates a nuanced understanding of her role as a Westerner in Tibet.”
5) Jane Goodall: 50 Years at Gombe, Jane Goodall (2010)
Published during the 50th anniversary of Jane Goodall’s establishment of the Gombe field site, 50 Years at Gombe is a tribute to Goodall and a look at some of the most recent research to come out of Gombe. The book includes information about her study of chimpanzees, landmark AIDS research as well as a dozen new photographs. Goodall received our Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007.
