Shortlisted for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
One of Five Books Best Literary Science Writing titles in 2023
A New York Times Editors' Choice
A Science Friday Best Science Book to Read This Summer

A myth-busting voyage into the female body.

A camera obscura reflects the world back but dimmer and inverted. Similarly, science has long viewed woman through a warped lens, one focused narrowly on her capacity for reproduction. As a result, there exists a vast knowledge gap when it comes to what we know about half of the bodies on the planet.

That is finally changing. Today, a new generation of researchers is turning its gaze to the organs traditionally bound up in baby-making—the uterus, ovaries, and vagina—and illuminating them as part of a dynamic, resilient, and ever-changing whole. Welcome to Vagina Obscura, an odyssey into a...