Clapp, Alexander. Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash. Little, Brown. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9780316459020. 400p. $30. SOCIAL SCIENCES

Clapp, an award-winning investigative journalist whose New Republic article “The Vampire Ship” is being adapted as a documentary series, looks at the global market for garbage—which spans across five continents, makes some people rich, fuels border skirmishes, and illuminates a fascinating and terrifying mix of environmental, social, and business concerns.

El Akkad, Omar. One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. Knopf. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9780593804148. 224p. $30. SOCIAL SCIENCES

El Akkad (American War; What Strange Paradise), a novelist, journalist, and winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, writes about the failure of the West to live up to the values it has enshrined and the consequences of witnessing that failure, over and over again.

Fagan, Kevin. The Lost and the Found: A True Story of Homelessness, Found Family and Second Chances. One Signal. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9781668017111. 288p. $29.99. SOCIAL SCIENCES

Fagan, an award-winning reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle, centers his exploration of homelessness in that most wealthy city, offering a character-driven and policy-oriented account of the factors driving an epidemic of homelessness, exacerbated by a lack of equality and care.

Hobbs, Jeff. Seeking Shelter: A Working Mother, Her Children, and a Story of Homelessness in America. Scribner. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9781668034828. 352p. $29.99. SOCIAL SCIENCES

Hobbs, bestselling and award-winning author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, writes about homelessness by following the life of a woman named Evelyn, her children, especially her son Orlando, and a social worker named Wendi. Their stories illuminate the broader social inequality and economic disparity that undergirds the American housing crisis.

Jones, Sarah. Disposable: America’s Contempt for the Underclass. Avid Reader. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9781982197421. 368p. $30. SOCIAL SCIENCES

Jones, a senior writer for New York magazine covering politics and religion, offers a mix of reporting and personal narrative as she explores inequality in the United States. Using COVID as her marker, she exposes how the nation creates an underclass it then sacrifices; she also lays out arguments to turn the tide.

Ross, Loretta J. Calling In: How To Start Making Change with Those You’d Rather Cancel. S&S. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9781982190798. 272p. $28.99. SOCIAL SCIENCES

Ross, a MacArthur Fellow, writes a memoir/manifesto on how to solve problems. Eschewing cancel culture, she advocates instead for calling people in. Ross discusses how she came to this philosophy through her own experiences and her decades of success as an activist.

Sanders, Chad. How To Sell Out: The (Hidden) Cost of Being a Black Writer. S&S. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9781982190835. 256p. $28.99. SOCIAL SCIENCES

TV writer, podcaster, and author Sanders (Black Magic: What Black Leaders Learned from Trauma and Triumph) writes about Black authorship and the commercialization and profit made off of Black experiences and pain, reflecting in thought-provoking ways on trauma, race, class, and creativity.

von Hippel, William. The Social Paradox: Autonomy, Connection, and Why We Need Both to Find Happiness. Harper. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9780063319257. 304p. $30. SOCIAL SCIENCES

Von Hippel (The Social Leap) explores humanity’s desire for connection and autonomy, how these two poles are in conflict, and how to resolve the paradox inherent in a need for both. Offering new ways to balance the interplay, von Hipple explores the ramifications of these evolutionary drives.

West, Keon. The Science of Racism: Everything You Need To Know but Probably Don’t—Yet. Abrams. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9781419774379. 320p. $28. SOCIAL SCIENCES

West, a social psychologist at Goldsmiths, University of London, addresses racism, moving away from opinion and personal anecdote to detailing the research and experiments that prove how racism impacts every aspect of life. He then explores and explains the various ways racism can be countered to create broader and deeper equity.

Yunkaporta, Tyson. Right Story, Wrong Story: How To Have Fearless Conversations in Hell. Feb. 2025. ISBN 9780063382398. 304p. $29.99. SOCIAL SCIENCES

Award-winning Yunkaporta (Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Change the World), a member of the Apalech Clan and a senior lecturer in Indigenous Knowledges at Deakin University, writes about how to navigate conflict and division, offering ways into conversations, listening, and change.