Books by Daniel Bergner
The Mind and the Moon: My Brother’s Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches
In the early 1960s, JFK declared that science would take us to the moon. He also declared that science would make the “remote reaches of the mind accessible” and cure psychiatric illness with breakthrough medications. We were walking on the moon within the decade. But today, psychiatric cures continue to elude us—as does the mind itself. In The Mind and the Moon, Bergner beautifully explores how to seek a deeper engagement with ourselves and one another—and how to find a better path toward caring for our minds.
Where to find it: Amazon | Apple Books | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop | HarperCollins | IndieBound
SING FOR YOUR LIFE: A STORY OF RACE, MUSIC, AND FAMILY
In Sing for Your Life, Daniel Bergner chronicles Ryan Speedo Green’s journey from solitary confinement to opera stardom, introducing us to a cast of memorable characters—including the two teachers from Ryan’s childhood who redirect his rage into music, and his long-lost father who finally reappears to hear Ryan sing. Bergner illuminates all that it takes—technically, creatively—to find and foster the beauty of the human voice, and sheds unique light on the enduring and complex realities of race in America.
Where to find it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
What Do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire
When it comes to sex, common wisdom holds that men roam and women crave closeness and commitment. But in this provocative, headline-making book, Daniel Bergner turns everything we thought we knew about women’s arousal and desire inside out.
Where to find it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
The Other Side of Desire: Four Journeys into the Far Realms of Lust and Longing
How do we come to be who we are sexually? How do we cope with the forces of desire? How can we understand the relationship between the transcendent and the physical, between the wish for love and the anarchy of the erotic? Daniel Bergner looks for answers in the stories of four people whose longings may be very different from our own.
Where to find it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
In the Land of Magic Soldiers: A Story of White and Black in West Africa
In this chilling, unflinching, and beautifully written narrative, Daniel Bergner journeys into the heart of the world’s most war-ravaged country: Sierra Leone. An African land of spectacular beauty, of vine bridges across jungle rivers and white lilies in radiant swamps, Sierra Leone has been torn apart by a decade of civil war.
Where to find it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
God of the Rodeo: The Search for Hope, Faith, and a Six-Second Ride in Louisiana’s Angola Prison
God of the Rodeo is an exploration of the human spirit, yielding in the process a searing portrait of a place that will be impossible to forget and a group of men, guilty of unimaginable crimes, desperately seeking a moment of grace.
Where to find it: Amazon | Barnes & Noble