I listen more than I read these days, so some of the entries here go "way back", but these all occupy a place of fondness in my soul, and have decidedly impacted my growth and thought process.
Dossie Easton & Catherine A. Liszt
The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities (1997)
Christopher Ryan & Cacilda Jethá
Sex At Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality (2010)
Tristan Taormino
Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships (2007)
Jessica Fern
Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy
Cunning Minx
Eight Things I Wish I'd Known About Polyamory: Before I Tried It and Frakked It Up
Wish List (i.e. not purchased/read yet):
Dedeker Winston
The Smart Girl's Guide to Polyamory: Everything You Need to Know About Open Relationships, Non-Monogamy, and Alternative Love
David Philip Barash & Judith Eve Lipton
The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People
I was a Sci-Fi junkie in High School. At that time I most enjoyed stories about "Spacers". There are others that should be on this list, but these are all I can recall in the moment.
Clifford D. Simak
The Big Front Yard (1958) [short story]
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) -- Hugo Award, 1967
Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) -- Hugo Award, 1962
Methuselah's Children (1958)
Time Enough for Love (1973)
nominated: Nebula Award, 1973; Hugo and Locus SF Awards, 1974
Job: A Comedy of Justice (1984)
winner: Locus Fantasy Award, 1985; nominated: Nebula Award, 1984, Hugo Award, 1985
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985)
To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987)
John McPhee
Coming into the Country (1976) ... Review @ The New Yorker
An absolute timeless gem. Highly recommended if you are passionate about the health of our planet's wilderness. Full of fun and amazing stories.
From the very beginning, you will be captivated.
The two stories I remember the most are of the Father & Son team that reworked spent gold mines (simply amazing!), and the young couple from the lower-48 who transplanted themselves to "The Country" (the Upper Youkon region of Alaska). But these barely scratch the surface of the educational value of this work.
Tracy Kidder
The Soul of a New Machine (1982)
Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
House (1985)
New York Times bestseller.
Brian Garfield
The Thousand-Mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians (1975)
This one hits really close to home for me. My Dad was a Bombardier/Navigator (apparently in an Army Air Force unit, possibly on a B-17 "Heavy Bomber", or something similar) and spent all of his active WW-II combat duty in the Aleutian Islands Campaign (Wikipedia) (NPS). Long after his death I was gifted this book by a neighbor who understood the importance of this story to me. I have SO MANY questions now.
I always assumed that my Dad's silence on his military duty was mostly associated with "survivor's guilt", which I am sure is partly true (the mortality rate of WW-II bomber crews was well over 63%, especially in the European Theater). After reading this book however, it became undeniably apparent to me that his time spent there was completely insane (which is true for any combat situation). The conditions they were subject to were well beyond anything any person should endure. Mainly because that on top of the combat stress, there was the weather. Repeatedly throughout the book, the author mentions that there were "three enemies" in that campaign: The Americans, the Japanese, and the Weather. Living conditions were deplorable: weak infrastructure (living/bathing in tents in sub-freezing conditions), mud & muck everywhere, marginal food quality subsistence, extremely isolated environment... all while flying 1,000 miles a day for combat missions (i.e. potentially getting shot at).
One of the more extreme examples of the conditions they endured is that when planes landed after a mid-winter mission, tech crews would drain the oil out of the engines to be stored in a heated building (so it would not freeze), and then reloaded the next morning prior to flight.
Other big problems were infrastructure, including the supply chain (food, fuel, etc.). There was only one established rail line to feed the operation, and almost no roads. Ports were limited as well. There were also no established military airfields, so the makeshift creations (usually using steel mesh, often built on bogs) were very problematic.
One of the biggest risks was finding and landing on the airstrip after a mission (which were often made daily). Usually socked in by fog, and long before sophisticated ILS (instrument landing system) devices were created, many planes (and sometimes crews) were lost simply because they ran out of fuel before they could find the home airbase. Since my Dad was the navigator, the crew was entirely dependent on him to get them home safely. The pressure must have been insane.
:-)