Best psychology books that's not a textbook

[digits2006]

What are some good nonfiction psychology books that you have read? I know Steven Pinker has written a few books.

[BeingThere]

--I loved Morton Hunt's "The Story of Psychology."  (That was my introduction to psychology.  I would suggest it for every first-year psych undergrad.)

--William James' "The Varieties of Religious Experience" was also worth reading. 

--Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow" was also good.

--Right now I'm reading George Ainslie's "Breakdown of Will."

[Arcadian]

I recommend all books by Andy Clark. Although he is a philosopher, he has a really interesting theoretical framework for cognitive science.

 

Being There

Natural-Born Cyborgs

Supersizing the Mind

[Guest |||]

Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

 

Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks

 

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

 

Phantoms in the Brain by Ramachandran

 

Blank Slate by Steven Pinker

 

Sex Murder and the Meaning of Life by Douglas Kendrick

 

 

And if you might be willing to explore a bit of fiction, a lot of stuff by Dostoevsky works well

[PsychGirl1]

If you want a more personal flair, I highly recommend Elyn Saks "The Center Cannot Hold", Kay Jamison's "An Unquiet Mind", and Temple Gradin's "Thinking in Pictures".

[Guest joshw4288]

Elliot Aronson's "The Social Animal", 2012

Roy Baumesiter's "Evil", 1996

Erich Fromm's "Anatomy of Human Destructiveness", 1973

Gordon Allport's "The Nature of Prejudice", 1958

Charles Cooley's "Human Nature and the Social Order", 1902

[Guest joshw4288]

A great one on stereotype threat, Whistling Vivaldi, Claude Steele, 2010

[EastCoasting]

Infinite reality and the neuroscience of psychotherapy. I also like Elliot Aronson's biography not By chance alone

[Angua]

For something a little different, I recommend Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise.  Probably not listed as a "psychology" book, but it's definitely an exploration of decision making.

[digits2006]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I have Nate Silver's book on my shelf. Just gotta find time to read it. Has anyone read The Invisible Gorilla: How our Intutiions Decieve us by Simons & Charbis?

[Elizabeth Reed]

I second Temple Grandin's Thinking in Pictures and everything Oliver Sacks has ever written! 

 

If you have any interest in mindfulness meditation, I'd recommend any and all of the following: Jon Kabat-Zinn's 'Wherever You Go There You Are' is great, though very much geared toward popular audience...James Austin's 'Zen and the Meditative Transformation of Consciousness' is also written for non-experts but is more informative for scientists. The Mind's Own Physician: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama (eds. Kabat-Zinn and Richard Davidson). 

 

Hm...others that are coming to mind:

 

Daniel Levitin's This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession

Paul Bloom's "How Pleasure Works" ("Descartes' Baby: How Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human" is also pretty good)

Gary Marcus' Birth of the Mind: How a Tiny Number of Genes Create the Complexity of Human Thought.

Raymond Fancher's "Pioneers of Psychology"

Franz de Waal's "Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved"

David Eagleman's Incognito 

V.S. Ramachandran's "The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human"

 

I would *not* recommend Ray Kurzweil's How to Create a Mind -- he's an AI researcher, one who's been out of active research for a while, I believe, and he says a lot of obvious things that don't really support the case he's trying to make. 

[PsychGirl1]

Also, Ellen Langer has a decent number of books on mindfulness as well.

[saba467]

I read Catalyst :how to change anyone mind by jonah till now and looking for other best psychology books