What are your reading plans this month? Books with big ideas abound as we head further into the month. That includes several cautionary tales about technology — from the way massive companies have abused their power to the methods by which one tech startup devolved into something that looked an awful lot like a cult. Other books due out in the weeks to come explore different environmental stories, including a crisis in Lake Erie and a wildlife success story in Russia and China, alongside a candid music memoir and a detailed look at the art of the crossword puzzle. Here’s a look at 10 books due out in November that have gotten our attention.
Ellen Huet, Empire of Orgasm: Sex, Power, and the Downfall of a Wellness Cult (Nov. 18)
Sometimes reports emerge from the startup world telling of long hours, the presence of charismatic founders and a blurred territory between the personal and professional. If those things can also sound a bit cult-like, well, you’re not wrong — and Ellen Huet’s new book Empire of Orgasm covers the territory where workplaces end and cults begin. You may have read earlier this year about a sex-positive startup called OneTaste and how it ran afoul of the law; this book provides an inside look at its rise and fall.
Natan Last, Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle (Nov. 25)
Crossword puzzles have fascinated readers for decades and inspired a critically acclaimed documentary on the subject. Now, Natan Last — himself an acclaimed creator of these puzzles — has tackled their history and influence in a new book. In an interview earlier this year, Last discussed his approach with the book and some of the elements covered within it, including how “the puzzle can take us out of everyday distraction and connect us to our past.” And if enough people read this book, it seems safe to assume that eventually it’ll be a crossword clue of its own one day.
Michelle Carr, Nightmare Obscura: A Dream Engineer’s Guide Through the Sleeping Mind (Nov. 18)
Sometimes when we dream, we encounter surreal vistas that would be impossible to encounter in the waking world; at others, we have mundane conversations that hardly seem imaginary. Michelle Carr is known for her work as a dream engineer, and in this book she explores multiple aspects of dreaming and the ways that different kinds of dreams can impact our daytime health and well-being.
Brad Fox, Another Bone-Swapping Event (Nov. 4)
When Brad Fox spoke with InsideHook in 2023 about The Bathysphere Book, he alluded to an unexpectedly long stay he had in Peru in the early days of the pandemic. “I was one of these Americans that were stuck in Peru during lockdown,” he recalled. “I ended up being there for over a year.” Another Bone-Swapping Event is his chronicle of that period in time, providing readers with a firsthand look at life in northern Peru with a metaphysical twist as the world around him changed dramatically.
Simon Raymonde, In One Ear: Cocteau Twins, Ivor And Me (Nov. 18)
In a 2018 article for The Quietus, Lottie Brazier called the music of Cocteau Twins “a spiky, dissociative sound bordering on spiritual ecstasy.” Since their heyday in the 1980s, the group has influenced a wide array of musicians; this new memoir by longtime member Simon Raymonde revisits the group’s rise to prominence and his own development as a musician. And it almost certainly has a great soundtrack.
Jonathan C. Slaght, Tigers Between Empires: The Improbable Return of Great Cats to the Forests of Russia and China (Nov. 4)
What does it take to preserve a species? For the Amur tiger, also known as the Siberian tiger, the answer involves a group of dedicated scientists and conservationists working around the world. Precisely how they came together to increase the tigers’ population is the story Jonathan C. Slaght tells in the new book Tigers Between Empires. In doing so, he also addresses some of the paradoxes that come with conservation: in a recent interview with The Observer, he noted that “[w]ildlife tends to do well under autocratic rule.”
Patrick Wensink, The Great Black Swamp: Toxic Algae, Toxic Relationships, and the Most Interesting Place in America That Nobody’s Ever Heard of (Nov. 11)
There’s been a lot written about the ways in which algae can overwhelm bodies of water — and, in some cases, can even be toxic. In his new book The Great Black Swamp, Patrick Wensink chronicles a massive bloom of algae in Lake Erie, and how this environmental catastrophe had a deep connection to a part of Ohio the author knew incredibly well. Here, Wensink finds a haunting convergence between memories and an altered landscape.
The Benefits of Buying Books You’ll Probably Never Read
Confused? Get to know the Japanese philosophy of “tsundoku.”
Tim Wu, The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity (Nov. 4)
If you’ve ever used the phrase “network neutrality,” you can thank legal scholar Tim Wu for that. Wu has been a leading voice calling for the reform and regulation of large tech platforms, and in this new book he contrasts the promise of tech companies decades ago with the bleaker reality that they have brought to fruition. “[B]eing essential should not entail an unfettered power to extract wealth from everyone else,” Wu wrote last month — a powerful argument expanded on in this book.
Matthew Davis, A Biography of a Mountain: The Making and Meaning of Mount Rushmore (Nov. 11)
Mount Rushmore is an iconic sight, a controversial place and the location of the climax of one of the best suspense films ever made. Matthew Davis’s new book explores the often-contradictory history of Mount Rushmore, from the Indigenous history of the location to the many personalities involved in the process by which four presidents’ faces were etched into the rock itself. It’s an expansive look at a place with a singular history.
David Z. Morris, Stealing The Future: Sam Bankman-Fried, Elite Fraud, and the Cult of Techno-Utopia (Nov. 11)
What a difference a few years can make. In 2021, Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX were a tech-world success story; by 2024, both were cautionary tales, and Bankman-Fried was sentenced to prison for fraud. David Z. Morris, who has written extensively on cryptocurrency and the more disquieting aspects of the startup world, chronicles both Bankman-Fried’s downfall and the larger implications of his case.
More Like This
This article appeared in an InsideHook newsletter. Sign up for free to get more on travel, wellness, style, drinking, and culture.
