Books like Picking up by Robin Nagle

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks follows the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black tobacco farmer whose cancer cells were taken in 1951 without her consent and later became the first immortal human cell line, HeLa, driving major scientific breakthroughs while raising questions of ethics, race, and medical exploitation.

The Fourth Turning presents a cycle‑based framework for understanding American history, positioning the nation in an unraveling phase and forecasting the crisis of the next century.

A riveting, nonfiction chronicle of Curt Flood’s 1969 trade and legal battle that paved the way for baseball free agency, placing him alongside historic figures like Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali.

A detailed examination of how American housing patterns, especially the rise of suburbia, have shaped social behavior, economic mobility, and racial segregation across the 20th century.

An incisive study of black women's experiments with love, solidarity, and freedom in early twentieth‑century America, exposing how their radical choices reshaped intimate life and defied social norms.

Socio‑researcher Sudhir Venkatesh infiltrates a Chicago crack‑dealing gang, documenting urban poverty and crime from within.

Twentieth anniversary edition of a landmark book that cataloged a vibrant but disappearing neighborhood in New York City In the two decades that preceded the original publication of Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, Forty-second Street, then the most infamous street in America, was being remade into a sanitized tourist haven. In the forced disappearance of porn theaters, peep shows, and street hustlers to make room for a Disney store, a children’s theater, and large, neon-lit cafes, Samuel R. Delany saw a disappearance, not only of the old Times Square, but of the complex social relationships that developed there. Samuel R. Delany bore witness to the dismantling of the institutions that promoted points of contact between people of different classes and races in a public space, and in this hybrid text, argues for the necessity of public restrooms and tree-filled parks to a city's physical and psychological landscape. This twentieth anniversary edition includes a new foreword by Robert Reid-Pharr that traces the importance and continued resonances of Samuel R. Delany’s groundbreaking Times Square Red, Times Square Blue.

Beverly Lowry’s biography brings Harriet Tubman, the famed "Moses of Her People," to vivid life, detailing her journey from escaped slave to Underground Railroad organizer, nurse, and Civil War contributor.

Richard Rodriguez’s memoir "Brown" examines the complex role of Hispanic identity in America’s history, exploring race, culture, and psychological dimensions of belonging across generations.