Recs if you like Awakenings...

Brain, consciousness, the hidden pathways of our mind. [Disclaimer: Some of these books have been hotly discussed as they often handle sensitive topics - look up trigger warnings and potential problematic discussions before reading to see if it is the right fit for you.]

ask large questions in small spaces! avoids (but not void of) memoirs/biographies, some case studies, and the macro i'm not a historian or an expert by any means but i am salty. a lot of contemporary lists for microhistory reads contain a lot of books that are absolutely not micro. At. All. think mark kurlansky ("milk", "salt", "cod" etc.), anything that starts with "a short history of [incredibly complex geopolitical event]", or literally any historical account that spans centuries/countries/cultures/individuals. while there is definitely some gray areas and overlap, a good way to attempt to distinguish micro from the macro is macrohistory looks at how an individual/event/object/place changed and influenced the world/society/culture -- an outward expansion of one idea that proliferates time and space. microhistory is the inverse. how did the contemporary society, culture, and world change and influence a specific, tangential individual/place/event? the micro attempts to answer that! so let's reduce the scale of investigation! focus on the ones history would have otherwise forgotten if not for the diligent note takers! we're talking footnotes! anecdotes! indexes! the hot goss! EA-NASIR! macrohistory is about everyone but microhistory is about you and me baby!

aka Oliver Sacks 'His approach was not to fit the patient into a syndrome or disease, but to examine the ways in which an individual coped and adapted in unique ways to different neurological challenges. He recognized every human being as an individual with their own strengths and dignity, their own ways of experiencing the world.'

I did too, but here's a list of books that have turned what I have often found to be a dry genre into readable and engaging text and narratives for me. Also includes, apart from 'strict non-fiction' (whatever that may be): essay collections and memoirs. (This is, of course, a limited list because a single person knowing everything would be rather catastrophic, so suggestions for more books fitting the bill are welcome in the comments, thanks!)