Hidden Figures

Written by: Margot Lee Shetterly

First line: "Mrs. Land worked as a computer out at Langley," my father said, taking a right turn out of the parking lot of First Baptist Church in Hampton, Virginia.

Why you should read this book: There is so much going on in this meticulous account of the women of West Computing, the racially segregated group of human computers that supported aviation technology during World War II with their incredible number-crunching abilities. The book follows the lives of several of the most high-profile black women who worked in this group and later for NASA and other agencies, but it's also a story about the civil rights movement, military history, engineering advances of the twentieth century, the Cold War, the space race, and dozens of humans who helped revolutionize air travel and eventually made the 1969 moonshot possible. This is a fast-paced book that tackles plenty of tough territory but makes its ideas accessible to lay readers with no background on any of the aforementioned subjects.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You'd rather watch the movie.