Why Brains Need Friends

Ben Rein

Bridge Street (2024)

Have you ever chosen between answering a friend’s phone call and finishing some work? This relatable scenario opens Why Brains Need Friends by neuroscientist Ben Rein. Social connection feels good and there is clear evidence that it lowers risks of dementia, cognitive decline, heart failure, diabetes, depression and stroke. Yet, few people prioritize it in the way they do exercise, sleep and nutrition.

Rein notes that various factors, including political polarization, remote work and online habits, are dividing people. And an accumulation of small decisions, such as choosing self-checkouts over small but real social contact in shops, could lead to increased risks of social isolation in older people.

It’s true that socializing can feel awkward. Some brains want more interaction than others; some encounters are more pleasant than others. Rein recommends recognizing, and meeting, your own social needs — like a ‘social diet’.

The good news is that other people like us more than we think they do, studies have shown. We can underestimate how interested others will be in us and how much a brief chat can lift our mood.

Rein encourages readers to not worry about people’s approval. And to think about what each declined invitation might cost both parties over time. So, when a friend calls, maybe answer? — Kelly-Ann Allen

Slowing the Sun

Nadine Hura

Bridget Williams (2025)

In Slowing the Sun, writer and poet Nadine Hura (of Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi and Pākehā descent) brings us a refreshing perspective on climate change. Western knowledge tends to struggle to reach communities outside academia; she offers Indigenous storytelling as a solution. Through her collection of essays, interspersed with powerful poetry, we meet climate activists, politicians and Indigenous leaders — and learn about her experiences of grief.

Recounting her father’s role in flattening mountains in Auckland, New Zealand, Hura highlights the juxtaposition of Indigenous people’s involvement in extractive industries, and reminds us how the poorest people bear the brunt of climate change in a system that they have no control over.

Hura reveals the gulf between how Western scientists discuss climate change, focusing on risks and vulnerabilities, and the determination of Indigenous communities to act — despite their lack of resources and power.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the climate crisis and disengage from it. But Hura reminds readers that “anything you do to benefit the land benefits you, often immediately. The environment is the healer, not the other way around”. I have never read a book like this before — deeply personal, yet relevant to everyone. Even the most seasoned climate scientist will learn a lot. — Tara McAllister

Thinking Like an Economist

Elizabeth Popp Berman

Princeton Univ. Press (2022)

It can seem hard to disagree with the maxim of efficiency. But observing the actions of the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) earlier this year — including the cuts it made to research — raised an important question. Is efficiency everything? A government is not a private company; organizing it around efficiency can detract from what it should be. Worryingly so.

Sociologist Elizabeth Popp Berman’s book, Thinking Like an Economist, helped me to make sense of what can be lost in favour of efficiency. Berman shows how, since the 1960s, US governments have strived for efficiency, sometimes over considerations of equity and democracy. The US Clean Air Act, for instance, was framed initially around asserting the public value of clean air by stigmatizing polluters and pushing industry to innovate. But over time, pollution became something to be priced, shifting efforts away from negotiating acceptable levels of pollution and towards markets.

This book is essential reading for those who want to understand how a focus on efficiency can help to centralize power and authority. Policies affect societal concerns that cannot be monetized. They are shaped through political bargains, by treading the line between redistribution and growth, environmental protection and business interests — and require messy democratic negotiation not algorithms. Such bargaining might not always deliver ‘value for money’ — but it remains essential for preserving freedoms. — Yamini Aiyar

These Letters End in Tears

Musih Tedji Xaviere

Catapult (2024)

In These Letters End in Tears, novelist Musih Tedji Xaviere tells a story about two young women in love in Cameroon — a love that provides refuge, self-acceptance and joy in a country where being gay is punishable by law. But the society fights back violently and devastatingly, through both individuals and institutions. The two women are incarcerated, for example. When my teary eyes left the last line of the final chapter, I became laser-focused on how to dismantle systems with beliefs, norms and laws that criminalize some experiences and existences.

As a medical sociologist, a central aspect of my work is to help people and institutions to understand how our societies can cause harm to some of us while allowing others to thrive. I identify how to eliminate oppression and promote well-being for all. For me, as a Cameroonian lesbian living in the United States, this book blurs the lines, in positive ways, between reality and fiction and between my professional responsibilities and my life’s purpose.

Readers will question the very core of education, media, religion, gender, family life, class, language, politics and law — in Cameroon and beyond. Tragedy is an explicit focus of this poignant book, but Xaviere’s award-winning fiction also suggests actions of resistance that everyone can take against the erasure that is perpetuated in many societies, to varying extent: defiance, community-building, storytelling and being present. — Sirry Alang

The Reason I Jump

Naoki Higashida

Sceptre (2013)

As a neuroscientist studying sensory input and behaviour, I seek to understand how brains construct perception and action. The Reason I Jump remains the most illuminating and hopeful book I have read. First published in 2007, its relevance has only increased as diagnoses of and research on autism spectrum disorder have expanded. Yet, the rich forms of communication, social connection and empathy that Naoki Higashida describes remain overlooked.

Higashida, who mainly communicates non-verbally, wrote this candid book using a Japanese hiragana alphabet grid when he was just 13 years old. Unlike most autobiographies written by adults, the book offers an unfiltered account of how his mind perceives, feels and attempts to act, before such experiences can be ‘sorted’ cognitively.

Autism is often portrayed as a condition of deficits: impaired communication, reduced empathy and inflexible behaviour. Higashida’s reflections challenge this idea with clarity and force. He describes his intense sensory world, the effort required to initiate even simple actions and the confusion that his own body can cause him.

For me, this book is galvanizing. In an era when discussions about autism often focus on pathology and clinical prediction rather than lived experience, it reminds me that communication extends far beyond speech — and that it can take forms that we have yet to fully understand. — Misa Shimuta

Intertwined

Rebecca Kormos

*New Press *(2024)

As part of her work documenting the relationship between people and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), wildlife biologist and conservationist Rebecca Kormos interviewed women — and wondered why she hadn’t previously sought their voices. The honesty and sincerity of this question, which kicks off her book about women involved in conservation and environmental activism, made me keep reading.

Intertwined showcases a vast sisterhood from which we can draw wisdom, courage and hope. For example, fisheries and wildlife biologist Midori Nicolson from Gwayi, Kingcome Inlet, a small village in Canada, reflects on the origin story of her people, the Dzawada’enuxw First Nation, whose history and cultural practices were altered by patriarchy and colonization. Reflecting on my own Yucatec Maya heritage, this prompted me to question which of our ancestral Indigenous stories have also been neglected. The resilience and strength of Zimbabwe’s Akashinga Rangers, all of whom are women, was so inspirational that I hope it will help to guide the transformation of the ranger team of the Belize Maya Forest Trust, which I lead.

Intertwined examines the role of everyone — not just women — in solving the planetary polycrisis. The scientific data and collective wisdom of the stories in the book show that good outcomes for gender equality and women’s rights will benefit all of humanity and nature. — Elma Kay

The Coming Wave

Mustafa Suleyman & Michael Bhaskar

Crown (2023)

Technologies such as artificial intelligence and synthetic biology are developing at a pace that outstrips that of the institutions designed to govern them. In The Coming Wave, Mustafa Suleyman, chief executive of Microsoft AI, explores this “containment problem” with writer Michael Bhaskar: keeping control over systems that evolve faster than the associated political, social and ethical frameworks.

Rather than immersing readers in technical minutiae, the book captures the tension between technology’s extraordinary potential and the responsibility that comes with shaping its impacts. Suleyman’s analysis shows that the coming decades will be defined not just by the deployment of innovative technologies, but also by how they are used (governance and collective judgement).

The Coming Wave balances urgency and optimism well. Suleyman is clear about the risks of disruption by technologies that cannot be paused or reversed. Yet, he frames these challenges as an invitation to act.

As a researcher at the intersection of AI and spatial intelligence, I was struck by the book’s foresight. It offers younger generations the chance to become architects rather than victims of technological change and to shape systems that are resilient, equitable and aligned with human values. It is a call to ethical engagement with powerful technologies. — Mohamed Ibrahim

Naturalistas

Laura de Cabo et al.

El Ateneo (2024)

Inspiration can be close by — if you know where to look. Women in the research team of Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “Bernardino Rivadavia” in Buenos Aires explored the work and lives of 16 of their predecessors: women who worked at the museum as illustrators and scientists, including botanists, arachnologists and marine biologists, over the past century. Despite contributing to their fields and the museum, these pioneers have long been overlooked.

This beautifully illustrated book, written in Spanish, conveys the thorough detective work its authors did. They combed through documents, newspapers and official records and contacted the researchers’ relatives. The stories were harder to piece together than they should have been.