The new year can be a clean slate, allowing us to reinvent ourselves as people who read more. As we try to predict what this year will bring, one thing should be kept in mind: this year is going to bring out some great books. Delving into micro-history can help cut through the noise of fiction books that try to answer larger questions by focusing too much on a narrow or “micro” topic. It can be a fun and easy way to become a home expert while checking at least one thing off your resolutions list.
Below, I’ve put together a compilation of 10 upcoming microhistories, in order of publication that I’m looking forward to.
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The Needs of the Creature: Writers Respond to the Science of Animal Conservation
Edited by Christopher Kondrich, Lucy Spelman and Susan Tacent
University of Minnesota Press, January 2025
(Tags: Environment)
The needs of the creature its publisher describes it as a “polyphonic call to arms on animal extinction and habitat loss” by more than three dozen contributors, from poets to scientific researchers. The book itself is less than 200 pages and is divided into six parts, each of which represents a basic need: air, food, water, shelter, etc. There are very few books that combine work across literary genres, focusing on a simple message: we must save our one and only precious Earth.
Superbloom: How connected technologies are breaking us
By Nicholas Carr
WW Norton, January 2025
(Tags: Technology)
This book will finally convince you to stay off social media or at least get the apps off your phone. Nicholas Carr, author of the 2010 book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains presents an old problem to a new generation of readers: technology is weird, it’s pretty bad, and it doesn’t always go as planned. From simple messaging apps to creative artificial intelligence, Carr explains how the “superbloom” of the latest technology is taking its toll on our basic communication skills and ability to understand each other. We were never supposed to live in online comment sections. In less than 300 pages, Carr promises to take readers into the murky waters of our ever-expanding technological landscape.
Waste Wars: Wild Life in Your Garbage
Author: Alexander Clapp
Little, Brown, February 2025
(Tags: Garbage)
You may have heard of it The Great Pacific Garbage Patcha loose raft of tens of thousands of tons of plastic waste. But do you know what happens to batteries, clothes or even food when you throw them in the trash? Author Alexander Clapp traveled across continents, jungles and garbage cans to bring to life the true multibillion-dollar story of what happens to our trash. Introducing readers to recycling gangsters and whistleblowers, Clapp presents a frank and honest examination of who makes money from what we throw away. He has too many journalism awards to list in his bio, so I’m optimistic that this 400-page micro-history will be fun, funky and, of course, not littered.
Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe
Author: Carl Zimmer
Dutton, February 2025
(Tags: air)
Every day, you breathe 2,000 liters of air! It is an amazing fact woven through Carl Zimmer in the air Its publisher describes it as “an odyssey through the history of living and its discovery”. This book promises to ask and answer questions like: How do you conduct air quality experiments, and how was Amelia Earhart involved? From aerial espionage and bioweapons to the latest understanding of COVID, Zimmer aims to take readers on an exciting, surprising, and eye-opening journey into the atmosphere.
Franklin Stove: The Unintended American Revolution
Author: Joyce E. Chaplin
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, March 2025
(Tags: Benjamin Franklin)
We all know that Benjamin Franklin invented many devices that we still use today, but this book focuses on just one, Franklin’s stove, and why he hoped to change our understanding of our environment forever. Pardon the pun, but it seems Franklin saw the forest through the trees here: he was concerned about the increasing deforestation he was witnessing and wanted to adjust the heat and air flow in our homes in order to understand more about our surroundings. atmosphere At over 400 pages, the book looks like a fascinating and scholastic collection of research and hypotheses from a Harvard professor of early American history.
A history of the world in six plagues: how pollution, class and captivity shaped us, from cholera to COVID-19
Author: Edna Bonhomme
Atria/One Signal Publishers, March 2025
(Tags: Pandemics)
While the urge to hide under the covers persists, it is time to expand our understanding of major diseases to prepare for the future and this seems to be the book for that. Edna Bonhomme traces the highs and lows of politics that changed the course of six devastating diseases: cholera, HIV/AIDS, The 1918 flusleeping sickness, Ebola and COVID. Bonhomme seems to gloss over the covert and overt ways these pandemics exacerbated existing social problems, discriminatory tactics, and long-standing trends in these diseases. Described by its publisher as a “literary account of humanity’s struggle against epidemic disease,” this 300-plus page book looks like it’ll have us sitting up, dressing up, and planning ahead.
Slither: How Nature’s Worst Creatures Light Up Our World
By Stephen S. Hall
Grand Central Publishing, April 2025
(Tags: Snakes)
Just in case you’ve never understood Indiana Jones phobia or are currently chatting snake safety in your local Facebook groupthis could be the book for you. As the publisher notes, snakes have been admired and feared for millennia, but few books attempt to reconcile the breadth of ecological, cultural and historical importance of these animals to the domestic reptile admirer. First rave reviews from popular animal-loving authors like Leila Philip (author Beaverland) and Sy Montgomery (author The soul of the octopus) makes me think this might be a favorite among nature-nonfiction readers.
Earthly Materials: Journeys Through the Effusions, Excretions and Decays of Our Bodies
By Cutter Wood
Mariner Books, April 2025
(Tags: Body Bodies)
I am so excited to tell everyone that I know all the disgusting facts that I hope to learn from this book. As the publisher explains, “Whether he’s blowing his nose, wiping sweat from his brow, or excusing himself to the bathroom, the human organism is essentially porous,” which is hysterical, disturbing, and fundamentally true. At nearly 400 pages divided into 13 chapters, this book is not for the faint of heart. Fortunately for the rest of us, we’ll find out where all the urine in major cities goes and with our understanding of natural selection what mucus has to do with it, among other curious facts. I hope this book will make us readers like a modern day Ms. Frizzle take a look at our glands, organs and membranes to enjoy some scientifically backed poop jokes.
The story of astrophysics in five revolutions
By Ersilia Vaudo. Translated by Vanessa Di Stefano
WW Norton, April 2025
(Tags: Astrophysics)
The best microhistories take a large topic and boil it down to a few key points, points in time or points of interest. In this book, Ersilia Vaudo aims to take the entire field of astrophysics and draw our attention to five incredible discoveries. In “poetic prose,” Vaudo takes readers from Isaac Newton’s discovery of the laws of gravity to Edwin Hubble’s revelation that our universe is expanding, even including antiparticles that physicists are still unsure about. Physics can be a complex subject that many find hard to wrap their heads around, but this book finally manages to do just that in about 200 pages.
Foreign Fruit: A Personal History of the Orange
Author: Katie Goh
Tin House, May 2025
(Tags: Oranges)
This book perfectly sums up the best parts of a great microhistory: a niche subject you’ve always loved (everyone loves oranges, from emperors to schoolchildren) written by a relatively talented new writer (the publisher’s copy says it grew). up “rose in a Chinese-Malaysian-Irish home in Northern Ireland” I personally can’t wait to hear her take on the food and culture). Its publisher has described it as a book of “research and a thoughtful and moving encounter with the orange and with oneself”. This is the kind of book I’m looking forward to to get me out of the winter doldrums and back into the sweetness of spring with some citrus and adventure.
