Books Like Lab Girl

Read more

Hope Jahren narrates her own memoir with the quiet intensity of someone who has spent a career learning to pay close attention — the scientific passages and the personal ones share the same register, and her voice has a quality of directness that makes the 12-hour runtime feel like a single unbroken conversation. All ten recommendations are highly rated and several are also author- memoirs, connected by readers who responded to this book's particular combination of professional passion and the intimacy of a scientist reading her own story.

10 books for fans of Lab Girl

  1. 1
    The Choice: Embrace the Possible cover

    The Choice: Embrace the Possible

    by Edith Eger, Edith Eva Eger

    More about this pick

    Holocaust survivor Edith Eger recounts being forced to dance for Mengele at sixteen, then chronicles her decades-long path from trauma to becoming a celebrated therapist.

    ★ 4.57 Goodreads (132.9K ratings)
    Get the Book → Start Listening →
  2. 2
    Nobody's Girl cover

    Nobody's Girl

    by Virginia Roberts Giuffre

    More about this pick

    Virginia Roberts Giuffre's courageous account reveals the girl behind the headlines—her journey from victim to the woman who exposed a predator's empire.

    ★ 4.55 Goodreads (70.8K ratings)
    Get the Book → Start Listening →
  3. 3
    Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon cover

    Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon

    by Robert Kurson

    ★ 4.53 Goodreads (12.0K ratings)
    Get the Book → Start Listening →
  4. 4
    The Elephant Whisperer: Learning About Life, Loyalty and Freedom from a Remarkable Herd of Elephants cover

    The Elephant Whisperer: Learning About Life, Loyalty and Freedom from a Remarkable Herd of Elephants

    Elephant Whisperer • Book 1

    by Lawrence Anthony, Graham Spence

    ★ 4.50 Goodreads (33.3K ratings)
    Get the Book → Start Listening →
  5. 5
    Shoe Dog cover

    Shoe Dog

    by Phil Knight

    More about this pick

    Phil Knight borrowed fifty dollars to import Japanese running shoes, nearly went bankrupt countless times, and somehow built Nike into a global empire. His memoir reads like a startup thriller filled with close calls and personality clashes.

    ★ 4.46 Goodreads (374.7K ratings)
    Get the Book → Start Listening →
  6. 6
    Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed cover

    Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed

    by Ben R. Rich, Leo Janos

    More about this pick

    Ben Rich chronicles Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works, where brilliant engineers developed the U-2, SR-71, and stealth fighter in America's most secret aerospace division.

    ★ 4.46 Goodreads (17.5K ratings)
    Get the Book → Start Listening →
  7. 7
    Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery cover

    Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery

    by Catherine Gildiner

    More about this pick

    Five extraordinary therapy cases reveal human resilience: from a successful musician with sexual dysfunction to siblings abandoned in winter isolation.

    ★ 4.45 Goodreads (67.5K ratings)
    Get the Book → Start Listening →
  8. 8
    Between Two Kingdoms cover

    Between Two Kingdoms

    by Suleika Jaouad

    More about this pick

    Fresh from college and in love in Paris, Suleika Jaouad suddenly faces leukemia at twenty-two, then chronicles her recovery through a cross-country journey of healing.

    ★ 4.42 Goodreads (130.6K ratings)
    Get the Book → Start Listening →
  9. 9
    Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan cover

    Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan

    by Sean Parnell, John R. Bruning

    ★ 4.40 Goodreads (13.3K ratings)
    Get the Book → Start Listening →
  10. 10
    Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within cover

    Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within

    by David Goggins

    More about this pick

    Goggins' follow-up dives deeper into mental strategies for breaking through self-imposed limitations. Raw examination of how comfort becomes the enemy of growth and potential.

    ★ 4.39 Goodreads (48.0K ratings)
    Get the Book → Start Listening →

Browse Related Lists

Lab Girl Best Biography & Memoir Books Most Popular Biography & Memoir