Reading doesn’t have to be a waste of time or a fever dream. Take the struggle out of finding the right book and check out these five books trending on Goodreads that make for the perfect start to Spring.
1. What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
In pursuit of answers, Munroe runs computer simulations, pores over stacks of declassified military research memos, solves differential equations, and consults with nuclear reactor operators. His responses are masterpieces of clarity and hilarity, studded with memorable cartoons and infographics. What If? explains the laws of science in operation in a way that every intelligent reader will enjoy and feel much the smarter for having read.
2. The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict
A vivid and mesmerizing novel about the extraordinary woman who married and worked with one of the greatest scientists in history. His first wife, Mileva “Mitza” Maric, was more than a devoted mother of their three children — she was also a brilliant physicist in her own right, and her contributions to the special theory of relativity have been hotly debated for more than a century.
3. The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in the early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. The exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved.
4. Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace … One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
The inspiring account of one man’s campaign to build schools in the most dangerous, remote, and anti-American reaches of Asia. In April 2011, the CBS documentary “60 Minutes” called into question Greg Mortenson’s work. The program alleged inaccuracies in Three Cups of Tea and its sequel, Stones into Schools as well as financial improprieties in the operation of Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute. Questions were also raised about Mortenson’s claim that he got lost near K2 and ended up in Korphe; that he was captured by the Taliban in 1996; the number of schools the CAI claimed to have built, and whether CAI funds had been used appropriately for Mortenson’s book tours.
5. The Silver Music Box by Mina Baites, Alison Layland (Translation)
A captivating cross-generational novel from German author Mina Baites about a Jewish family divided by World War II and an inheritance with the power to bring them back together. 1914. For Paul, with love. Jewish silversmith Johann Blumenthal engraved those words on his most exquisite creation, a singing filigree bird inside a tiny ornamented box. He crafted this treasure for his young son before leaving to fight in a terrible war to honor his beloved country — a country that would soon turn against his own family. A half-century later, Londoner Lilian Morrison inherits the box after the death of her parents. Though the silver is tarnished and dented, this much-loved treasure is also a link to an astonishing past.