100 Books Like Belief

If there is one book I wish I’d written myself, it is How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass. One of the things I admired most about the people who shaped my education and career path most was their ability to listen carefully and ask critical questions that uncovered even more than what was first expressed. Christopher DiCarlo’s book is a manual to practicing these traits. The book provides all of the tools needed to question beliefs and assumptions held by those who claim to know what they’re talking about, while at the same time providing practical solutions for today’s world of misinformation. The book also convinced me that faulty reasoning can be spotted by asking the right sorts of questions—what better gift to give someone? 

I found this book absolutely thrilling as a real-life story of one of the biggest bullshit busts in history. Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme ran for almost 18 years without much concern or investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). But, Harry Markopolos, a little-known number cruncher from a Boston equity derivatives firm, was onto Madoff after looking at Madoff’s financial records, several years before the bust made headlines. Page by page, Markopolos details his pursuit of the greatest financial criminal in history, and reveals the massive fraud, governmental incompetence, and criminal collusion that has changed thousands of lives forever-as well as the world’s financial system. All the while, no one, including the SEC, would listen. As such, the book is the quintessential example of how spellbinding bullshit can be. 

Michael Shermer systematically addresses why humans believe weird and extraordinary things. He even makes a case that we are hard-wired for it. Further—and this should make most of us feel better about our strange thinking—he shows how even highly intelligent people sometimes believe in pseudoscience and other extraordinary claims. 

I found Everything is Bullshit to be so interesting that I wasn’t able to put it down once discovered in a random, one-off, used bookstore. This book is a sleeping beauty. It opened my eyes to all the scams that big companies use and how they have the money and power to keep getting away with them. The explanations for why many of our society’s most cherished traditions are actually based on bullshit reasoning are well-researched and compelling. The book helped me understand why diamond engagement rings are so expensive, why wine is so expensive, how art becomes “art”, why non-profit organizations ask us to donate our cars to them, why college costs so much, and why so many pets die in animal shelters.

The book, written in mid-century, has some of the most powerful hypotheses of social psychology, which, along with the ideas of fellow émigré from Germany, Kurt Lewin, gave birth to the field of social psychology. Read Chapter 4 at least. I do every 5 years or so. The chapter gave rise to both dissonance theory and attribution theory, two of the major accomplishments of social psychology.

A classic treatise on how the mind works in a social context by two of the most famous social psychologists in the world. Why do people do what they do? It is not just a matter of their character or personality; we all respond to social norms, social pressures, and cultural contexts, more so than we think we do. And to understand someone else, we have to put ourselves inside their head and understand how they see the world, and how culture and the social context shapes that view. Many people who have read this book say it has fundamentally changed the way they view the world.

This is a book about (social) identity and how our understanding of self is derived from the social groups we are part of.

Two brilliant psychologists, Jay Van Bavel and Dominic Packer, use their own research and insights from social psychology and neuroscience to explain how identity really works and how it influences our thinking and doing every single day.

The book really makes you think about how our social nature impacts on all kinds of decision-making, and it will give you new ideas and insights about power and influence. 

Oh boy, this monumental book certainly expanded my empathetic mind! The greatest lesson? The fact that true empathy requires a compassionate response. That was an eye-opener! This book has really stuck with me. I remember being entrenched and enthralled with every page while on a writing retreat. I can’t thank the author enough for helping me fine-tune my own books about the empathic experience!

Similar in tone to her well-known The Language of Emotions, this book doesn’t dive too deeply into metaphysical perspectives. Instead, this book is primarily grounded in psychology, history, and science. That is the very reason why we highly sensitive souls benefit from books like these; we are admittedly gullible and easy to manipulate if our empathy is uncontrolled! Understanding our abilities through a grounded psychological lens such as this is crucial for our emotional understanding.

Daniel Pink provides a unique perspective on finding meaning and purpose in life by embracing the transformative potential of regret.

As you explore your sense of meaning and purpose, this book offers valuable insights into how reflecting on past experiences and learning from mistakes can enrich your life's journey. It made me rethink past so-called regrets, and whether they might have positively or negatively influenced my sense of meaning.

Through thorough primary research and compelling stories, Pink demonstrates how regret can inspire personal growth, self-improvement, and a clearer understanding of your life's direction. The book encourages you to use regret as a powerful resource, which only can help your sense of meaning and purpose.

I would heartily recommend this book to those interested in how musical abilities develop through childhood.

Hargreaves’ text was the first to put the developmental psychology of music on the map, identifying it as an important area of study for the first time and setting the scene for a major area of research in music psychology that continues to this day.

I love the way that Hargreaves combines empirical findings with observations of his own children in action, which makes it an engaging read.