Annual book list
Annual book list
Welcome to the 2021 season of HeyReprotech. Despite all we've just come through and all we still face, I just want to confess: I'm feeling strangely hopeful.
Those of you who have been with me since the beginning will know that I like to kick off the year with a book list. As always, these books touch on assisted reproduction in some way. Some of them have appeared on previous lists of mine, some are new here. Some were published long ago, but are still relevant; others have not yet been published, but promise to come out within the year.
I wish I could say that I have read them all, cover to cover, but I have not. I also cannot say that I endorse all these books: some of them do not represent my views. That said, my goal isn't to provide you with a list of books that align with my thinking — it's to provide you with a list of books that are out there. One way or another, they will help us find our way forward.
Happy reading.
2021
Henry Greely. CRISPR People: The Science and Ethics of Editing Humans. 2021.
Walter Isaacson. The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race. 2021.
Sarah Dingle. Brave New Humans: The Dirty Truth Behind the Fertility Industry. 2021.
Nolwenn Bühler. When reproduction meets ageing: The Science and Medicine of the Fertility Decline. 2021.
Katy Faust and Stacy Manning. Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Children's Rights Movement. 2021.
Jen Gunter. The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health with Facts and Feminism. 2021.
2020
Lucy van de Wiel. Freezing Fertility: Oocyte Cryopreservation and the Gender Politics of Aging. 2020.
Eben Kirksey. The Mutant Project: Inside the Global Race to Genetically Modify Humans. 2020.
Deborah Spar. Work Mate Marry Love: How Machines Shape Our Human Destiny. 2020.
John Hyde Evans. The Human Gene Editing Debate. 2020.
Kevin Davies. Editing Humanity: The CRISPR Revolution and the New Era of Genome Editing. 2020.
Amy Klein. The Trying Game: Get Through Fertility Treatment and Get Pregnant Without Losing Your Mind. 2020.
Wendy Kramer. Donor Family Matters: My story of raising a profoundly gifted donor-conceived child, redefining family, and building the Donor Sibling Registry. 2020.
2019
Margaret Marsh and Wanda Ronner. The Pursuit of Parenthood: Reproductive Technology from Test-Tube Babies to Uterus Transplants. 2019.
Dani Shapiro. Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love. 2019.
Dov Fox. Birth Rights and Wrongs: How Medicine and Technology are Remaking Reproduction and the Law. 2019.
Catherine Waldby. The Oocyte Economy: The Changing Meaning of Human Eggs. 2019.
Vida Panitch. "Basic Income and Intimate Labor" in The Future of Work, Technology and Basic Income. 2019.
Kylie Baldwin. Egg Freezing, Fertility and Reproductive Choice: Negotiating Responsibility, Hope and Modern Motherhood. 2019.
Francoise Baylis. Altered Inheritance: CRISPR and the ethics of human genome editing. 2019.
Erik Parens and Josephine Johnston. Human Flourishing in an Age of Gene Editing. 2019.
Jennifer Lahl, Melinda Tankard Reist and Renate Klein. Broken Bonds: Surrogate Mothers Speak Out. 2019.
Jennifer Block. Everything Below the Waist: Why Healthcare Needs a Feminist Revolution. 2019.
Marna Gatlin and Carole LieberWilkins. Let's Talk About Egg Donation: Real Stories from Real People. 2019.
Emma Brockes. An Excellent Choice: Panic and Joy on My Solo Path to Motherhood. 2019.
Joanne Ramos. The Farm. 2019.
Alexandra Kimball. The Seed: Infertility is a Feminist Issue. 2019.
Dorette Noorhasan. Miracle Baby: A Fertility Doctor's Fight for Motherhood. 2019.
Jen Gunter. The Vagina Bible: The Vulva and the Vagina – Separating the Myth from the Medicine. 2019.
Francesca Scala. Delivering Policy: The Contested Politics of Assisted Reproductive Technologies in Canada. 2019.
Charlotte Krolokke et al. The Cryopolitics of Reproduction on Ice: A New Scandinavian Ice Age. 2019.
Simon Fishel. Breakthrough Babies: An IVF pioneer's tale of creating life against all odds. 2019.
2018 and earlier
Rosanna Hertz and Margaret Nelson. Random Families: Genetic Strangers, Sperm Donor Siblings, and the Creation of New Kin. 2018.
Erin Heidt-Forsythe. Between Families and Frankenstein: The Politics of Egg Donation in the United States. 2018.
Allison McDonald Ace, Ariel Ng Bourbonnais and Caroline Starr. Through, Not Around: Stories of Infertility and Pregnancy Loss. 2018.
Diane Tober. Romancing the Sperm: Shifting Biopolitics and the Making of Modern Families. 2018.
Vanessa Gruben, Alana Cattapan and Angela Cameron, eds. Surrogacy in Canada: Critical Perspectives in Law and Policy. 2018.
Dave Snow. Assisted Reproduction Policy in Canada: Framing, Federalism and Failure. 2018.
Wendy Kramer. Your Family: A Donor Kid's Story. 2018.
Joanna Flemons. Infertility and PTSD: The Uncharted Storm. 2018.
Elizabeth Katkin. Conceivability: What I Learned Exploring the Frontiers of Fertility. 2018.
Natalie Sappleton, ed. Voluntary and Involuntary Childlessness: The Joys of Otherhood? 2018.
Mary Ann Mason and Tom Ekman. Assisted Reproduction and the Rights of the Child. 2017.
Judith Daar. The New Eugenics: Selective Breeding in an Era of Reproductive Technologies. 2017.
Jacqeline Mroz. Scattered Seeds: In Search of Family and Identity in the Sperm Donor Generation. 2017.
Monique Deveaux and Vida Panitch, eds. Exploitation: From Practice to Theory. 2017.
Henry Greely. The End of Sex and the Future of Human Reproduction. 2016.
Sonia Allan. Donor Conception and the Search for Information: From Secrecy and Anonymity to Openness. 2016.
Cathie Quillet and Shannon Sutherland. Not Pregnant: A companion for the Emotional Journey of Infertility. 2016.
Belle Boggs. The Art of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine, and Motherhood. 2016.
Bianca Smith. IVF. A Detailed Guide: Everything I Wish I Had Known Before My Fertility Treatments. 2016.
Louise Brown and Martin Powell. Louise Brown: My Life As The World's First Test-Tube Baby. 2015.
Kajsa Ekis Ekman. Being and Being Bought: Prostitution, Surrogacy and the Split Self. 2014.
Tanya Selvaratnam. The Big Lie: Motherhood, Feminism, and the Reality of the Biological Clock. 2014.
Wendy Kramer and Naomi Cahn. Finding Our Families: A First-of-Its-Kind Book for Donor-Conceived People and Their Families. 2013.
Leslie Morgan Steiner. The Baby Chase: How Surrogacy is Transforming the American Family. 2013.
The Boston Women's Health Book Collective. Our Bodies, Ourselves. 2011.
Jane Manterfield. I'm Taking My Eggs and Going Home: How One Woman Dared to Say No to Motherhood. 2010.
Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos. Silent Sorority: A Barren Woman Gets Busy, Angry, Lost and Found. 2009.
Theresa Miller. Making Babies: Personal IVF Stories. 2007.
Debora L. Spar. The Baby Business: How Money, Science, and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception. 2006.
Robin Marantz Henig. Pandora's Baby: How the First Test Tube Babies Sparked the Reproductive Revolution. 2004.
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It's never too early! My 2022 book list is already open. If you have a book coming out before the end of 2022, or if you come across a book you think should be on next year's list, please get in touch.
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