A Fat Reading List
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Fat activism may be new to many readers, but its contemporary roots stretch back to the 1960s, and deeper roots stretch back even further. Fat folks from all walks of life have been writing, organizing, building community and growing movements for years. Here are just some of the leaders and works who have shaped our understandings of fatness.
Each title below provides links for purchase. Get books shipped from Powell’s Books, the US’s largest independent bookstore, or use Indiebound to find titles at your local independent bookstore. If you’re able, buy books new to ensure that these writers & leaders are paid for their work.
Essential Titles & Starting Points
Sonya Renee Taylor, “The Body Is Not an Apology” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Sabrina Strings, “Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Roxane Gay, “Hunger” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Marilyn Wann, “Fat!So?” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Charlotte Cooper, “Fat Activism” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Activism
Sonya Renee Taylor, “The Body Is Not an Apology” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Kate Harding & Marianne Kirby, “Lessons from the Fat-O-Sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Lisa Schoenfielder, “Shadow on a Tightrope: Writings by Women on Fat Oppression” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Marilyn Wann, “Fat!So?” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Memoir
Roxane Gay, “Hunger” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Lindy West, “Shrill” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Jes Baker, “Landwhale” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Kimberly Dark, “Fat, Pretty and Soon to be Old” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Lesley Kinzel, “Two Whole Cakes” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Mirna Valerio, “A Beautiful Work in Progress” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Leah Vernon, “Unashamed: Musings of a Fat, Black Muslim” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Camryn Manheim, “Wake Up, I’m Fat!” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Rae Earl, “My Mad Fat Diary” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Kiese Laymon, “Heavy: An American Memoir” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Humor
Sofie Hagen, “Happy Fat” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Nicole Byer, “#VeryFat #VeryBrave” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Guy Branum, “My Life as a Goddess” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Samantha Irby, “We Are Never Meeting in Real Life” [ Indiebound | Powell's ]
Fat Studies & Scholarship
Sabrina Strings, “Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Da’Shaun Harrison, “The Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Andrea Elizabeth Shaw, “The Embodiment of Disobedience: Fat Black Women’s Unruly Political Bodies” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Hillel Schwartz, “Never Satisfied: A Cultural History of Diets, Fantasies and Fat” [ Powell’s ]
Cat Pause, Jackie Wakes and Samantha Murray, “Queering Fat Embodiment” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Sondra Solovay and Esther Rothblum, “The Fat Studies Reader” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Amy Erdman Farrell, “Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Sondra Solovay, JD, “Tipping the Scales of Justice: Fighting Weight-Based Discrimination” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Anna Kirkland, “Fat Rights: Dilemmas of Difference and Personhood” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Erin Cameron and Constance Russell, “The Fat Pedagogy Reader” [ Indiebound ]
Jana Evans Braziel & Kathleen LeBesco, “Bodies Out of Bounds: Fatness and Transgression” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Jason Whitesel: “Fat Gay Men: Girth, Mirth and the Politics of Stigma” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Michelle Mary Lelwica, “Shameful Bodies: Religion and the Culture of Physical Improvement” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Adrienne Rose Bitar, “Diet and the Disease of Civilization” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Elena Levy-Navarro, “Historicizing Fat in Anglo-American Culture” [ Indiebound ]
Ela Przybylo and Sara Rodrigues, “On the Politics of Ugliness” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Nonfiction
Susan Greenhalgh, “Fat-Talk Nation: The Human Costs of America’s War on Fat” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Alicia Mundy, “Dispensing with the Truth: The Victims, The Drug Companies, and the Dramatic Story Behind the Battle Over Fen-Phen” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Harriet Brown, “Body of Truth: How Science, History and Culture Drive Our Obsession with Weight—and What We Can Do About It” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Lee F. Monaghan, “Men and the War on Obesity” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Paul Campos, “The Obesity Myth” [ Powell’s ]
J. Eric Oliver, “Fat Politics: The Real Story Behind America’s Obesity Epidemic” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Virgie Tovar, “Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love & Fashion” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Hanne Blank, “Big Big Love” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Fiction
Julie Murphy, “Dumplin’” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Sarai Walker, “Dietland” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Kai Hibbard, “Losing It” [ Amazon ]
Carmen Maria Machado, “Her Body and Other Parties” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Julie Murphy, “Faith: Taking Flight” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Poetry
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “Fat Art, Thin Art” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Rachel Wiley, “Fat Girl Finishing School” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Rachel Wiley, “Nothing Is Okay” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Yesika Salgado, “Tesoro” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Yesika Salgado, “Corazón” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Yesika Salgado, “Hermosa” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Physical Movement for Fat People
Jessamyn Stanley, “Every Body Yoga” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Valarie Sagun, “Big Gal Yoga” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]
Hanne Blank, “The Unapologetic Fat Girl’s Guide to Exercise and Other Incendiary Acts” [ Indiebound | Powell’s ]