Jess Phoenix

Volcanologist, founder @BlueprintEarth, Fellow @explorersclub & @RGS_IBG, host @catastrophepod, science evangelist, animal rescuer. Ran for Congress. ‍

We may earn commissions for purchases made via this page

Book Recommendations:

JP

Recommended by Jess Phoenix

Need inspiration during lockdown? Time to let your creativity flow, & I highly recommend the fantastic @feliciaday's latest book Embrace Your Weird! Check it out, & bonus points if you get it from a local bookseller. My weird feels properly validated now! https://t.co/CEy7BYh9uC https://t.co/Z3hbllXdGK (from X)

In Embrace Your Weird, New York Times bestselling author, producer, actress, TV writer, and award-winning web series creator, Felicia Day takes you on a journey to find, rekindle, or expand your creative passions. Including Felicia s personal stories and hard-won wisdom, Embrace Your Weird offers: --Entertaining and revelatory exercises that empower you to be fearless, so you can rediscover the things that bring you joy, and crack your imagination wide open --Unique techniques to vanquish enemies of creativity like: anxiety, fear, procrastination, perfectionism, criticism, and jealousy --Tips to cultivate a creative community --Space to explore and get your neurons firing Whether you enjoy writing, baking, painting, podcasting, playing music, or have yet to uncover your favorite creative outlet, Embrace Your Weird will help you unlock the power of self-expression. Get motivated. Get creative. Get weird.

JP

Recommended by Jess Phoenix

Did you all see this? I'm in a kids' book with Carl Sagan, Jacques Cousteau, Marie Curie, Stephen Hawking, and more! This is AMAZING. If you or anyone you know has a young person who deserves some science in their life, I highly recommend ordering this book! #WomenInScience https://t.co/kebJTetnAT (from X)

Dream Big, Little Scientists: A Bedtime Book book cover

by Michelle Schaub, Alice Potter·You?

Twelve kids. A dozen bedtimes. Endless sweet ways to say goodnight with science! Spark curiosity and exploration with this innovative bedtime story for budding scientists that introduces eleven branches of science. From astronomy to physics to chemistry to geology, this STEM picture book will help kids get excited to explore. Includes further information about each branch of science.

JP

Recommended by Jess Phoenix

@BruceWaTheTruth @grinninfoole @Benw83084388 @conservmillen I highly recommend Timothy Egan's book The Worst Hard Time if you're interested in learning more. It's a fascinating look at catastrophe and resilience. (from X)

In a tour de force of historical reportage, Timothy Egan’s National Book Award–winning story rescues an iconic chapter of American history from the shadows. The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Timothy Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, he does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, “the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respect” (New York Times). In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, The Worst Hard Time is “arguably the best nonfiction book yet” (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and a powerful reminder about the dangers of trifling with nature.

JP

Recommended by Jess Phoenix

I read @Peggynoonannyc's book What I Saw at the Revolution when I was 15 (10th grade history, woo). It showed a sincere, nuanced, insightful political perspective. Hopefully holdout GOPers will see this piece & recognize Noonan is writing the truth. https://t.co/OfWyCIZVzq (from X)

On the hundredth anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth comes the twentieth-anniversary edition of Peggy Noonan’s critically acclaimed bestseller What I Saw at the Revolution, for which she provides a new Preface that demonstrates this book’s timeless relevance. As a special assistant to the president, Noonan worked with Ronald Reagan—and with Vice President George H. W. Bush—on some of their most memorable speeches. Noonan shows us the world behind the words, and her sharp, vivid portraits of President Reagan and a host of Washington’s movers and shakers are rendered in inimitable, witty prose. Her priceless account of what it was like to be a speechwriter among bureaucrats, and a woman in the last bastion of male power, makes this a Washington memoir that breaks the mold—as spirited, sensitive, and thoughtful as Peggy Noonan herself.