Brave New Brain: Conquering Mental Illness in the Era of The Genome5 reviews Nancy C. Andreasen Oxford University Press, USA, 2004 Another Medical Classic + medication and andreason neuroscientist + Liberating Book of Facts + An Excellent Overview of the Genetics of Mental Illness + A Liberating Book of Knowledge             No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality23 reviews Judith Rich Harris W. W. Norton, 2006 A masterful presentation of how we become who we are + Filling in the gaps. + No Two Alike + Another gem from one of our best thinkers             The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness52 reviews Antonio Damasio Harvest Books, 2000 A seminal work + An engaging discussion of consciousness + The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness I very seldom come across a book that is so groundbreaking in its content as to make me determined to fully understand what the author is trying to convey (even if it means rereading it three times!) Damasio's The Feeling of What Happens is an astonishing achievement and I believe that the science ...             Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships80 reviews Daniel Goleman Bantam, 2006 Easy On Your Brain + Not as earth shattering as emotional intelligence + Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships. + Intelligence + Awareness = Healthy Relationships! (translation: Read this Book!)             Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind10 reviews David Berreby Little, Brown and Company, 2005 Types, categories and groups + Excellent popular explanation of social psychology "Prejudice", we are told, isn't "reasonable". "Race" is an "illogical" or "unscientific" concept. Christians tell us we must "love all others as our brothers" - and sisters in a more ecumenical world. Yet Chief Executives can label entire nations as elements of an "Axis of Evil" and make or ...             The Cultural Animal: Human Nature, Meaning, and Social Life Roy F. Baumeister Oxford University Press, USA, 2005 What makes us human? Why do people think, feel and act as they do? What is the essence of human nature? What is the basic relationship between the individual and society? These questions have fascinated both great thinkers and ordinary humans for centuries. Now, at last, there is a solid basis for answering them, in the form of accumulated efforts and studies by thousands of psychology ...             Why We Believe What We Believe: Uncovering Our Biological Need for Meaning, Spirituality, and Truth6 reviews Andrew Newberg, Mark Robert Waldman Free Press, 2006 Why We Believe What We Believe + Free Yourself From Your Belief in Beliefs. + Very interesting and helpful + Well-written and compelling, although with obvious biases             The Politics of Deviance16 reviews Anne Hendershott Encounter Books, 2002 Bam This Book is spot on! + Excellent resource for my course + Exposition of the TRUTH + The truth hurts!             The Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind19 reviews Elkhonon Goldberg Oxford University Press, USA, 2002 Helpful to Understanding Brain Injury + A Worthwhile Read + Interesting, not despite its slightly unscientifical approach, but because of it + I loved the book!             Meanings of Life3 reviews Roy F. Baumeister The Guilford Press, 1992 a psychological overview + Revealing and Thought Provoking This book is not an attempt to tell us what the "meanings of life" are, just what we think they are: it's psychology, not philosophy. An interesting aspect of the book is the explorations of ways that we sometimes find our "meanings" inadequate. Baumeister begins with a definition of meaning ...             Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain52 reviews Antonio Damasio Penguin (Non-Classics), 2005 Wonderful Intro to Cognitive Neuroscience. + Damasio is wonderful to read! + The Three Amigos - Brain, Body and Mind This book served as my introduction to the world of cognitive neuroscience. Written in a hybrid story-explanation form unique to Damasio, this book shows how much is known about how our mind operates and how we know it. As indicated in the title, it also describes a more realistic view of mental ...             The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life34 reviews Joseph Ledoux Simon & Schuster, 1998 Improving the performance of your mind by understanding how the brain works + Fascinating + A needed book of emotions and their role in the brain + An engrossing read into Emotional Brain + The Emotional Brain - the BEST             The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule31 reviews Michael Shermer Holt Paperbacks, 2005 Good Complement to The God Delusion + One of Shermer's Greats + excellent Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion makes the argument that ethics and morals do not depend upon a God or religion. Dawkins, however, does not address the gap that people might need religion upon which to base their morals and ethics. Shermer explores non-religious bases for morality and ethics in ...             Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong16 reviews Marc Hauser Ecco, 2006 Natural Morality Over the last decade the study of the human brain has moved out of the leafy halls of academia into many different fields, including ethics and the law. If socially unacceptable behavior is being driven by some wiring problem in the brain, is a person legally liable? Or is the brain just one part ...             The BROKEN BRAIN5 reviews Nancy C. Andreasen Harper Paperbacks, 1985 A Classic + Great Info + Broken Brain + A winning choice for anyone interested in mood disorders + A winning choice for anyone interested in mood disorders             Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations21 reviews Christopher Lasch W. W. Norton & Company, 1991 Superbly Written and Incisive Critique + Powerful Indictment of U.S. Culture + by Hammer and Hand do all things stand... Christopher Lasch is intellect, you sense it as you read a flowing description of well-structured prose. He develops arguments, marshals facts, and presents his critique of so much that is debilitating modern society - American - and through ill-thought out emulation, British and other Western ...             How the Mind Works165 reviews Steven Pinker W. W. Norton & Company, 1999 A Logical Mind Interprets and Sees a Logical Mind + Steven Pinker vs. Robert Wright: Who said what first? + A treatise on evolutionary psychology I found this book to be excellent and a fun read. It goes into detail about how one can view the human mind from a logical and behaviorist stand-point. He discusses a computer program type analogy for how a mind can work with a minimum of sub-programs or data types. I did find the book a ...             Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ52 reviews Daniel Goleman Bantam Books, 2005 New post-IQ era opening book? + The power of EQ + What's your EQ? + Getting smart about your emotions + fascinating exploration             The Ethical Brain: The Science of Our Moral Dilemmas (P.S.)2 reviews Michael S. Gazzaniga Harper Perennial, 2006 An important acquisition for any collection concerned with medical or scientific ethical issues. Scientific advancements have led to many ethical quandaries covered elsewhere: THE ETHICAL BRAIN: THE SCIENCE OF OUR MORAL DILEMMAS is something different, surveying the link between increasing knowledge and the formation of new moral principles. It comes from a neuro-scientist who examines ...             The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology116 reviews Robert Wright Vintage, 1995 A self-help book + A Seminal Popularization of Evolutionary Psychology + tabula rasa be gone + Not Quite Moral + A very interesting point of view