100 Books Like Empathy and the Historical Understanding of the Human Past

This book is a collection of essays with an almost palpable heartbeat, which is exactly the sort of book I consider mandatory reading.

I found myself leveled by the depth and volume of insights on every page, about what it means to really see and care for one another, to withstand pain ourselves, and to witness it in the world.

I experienced so many moments of recognition, reading an articulation of a human truth I’d perhaps known or felt on a subconscious level but never formed into thought or heard expressed quite so beautifully. It’s as if Leslie Jamison lives at a different emotional frequency, paying attention to the world and distilling what’s important.

One piece of advice: don’t tackle this one intending to make notes in the margins because pretty much every sentence is worth coming back to.

Paul Bloom wants to persuade the reader to be against empathy, as he is, because morally we’re better off without empathy.

He is right, and I see his argument as similar to the argument made by Sugden, although its structure is very different. Bloome, rightly, says that we cannot rely on empathy to be moral – we need something more and something more tangible.

That something might be rationality, although Bloome himself prefers to speak of reason. Moral theories have for too long relied on unstable ground: empathy and moral character.

If we care about morality, we must ground it on more solid ground.

I’m not much of an animal lover, but I found the insights into the lives of animals here really fascinating.  Lori Gruen is an animal welfare activist as well as a philosopher, and she brings these capacities together in a wonderful exploration of the degree to which animals have empathy, or something like it, as well as the ways in which our extending empathy to animals can improve our ethical relationships with them.  Gruen’s point is that empathy focuses us on others as distinctive individuals, with different perspectives and needs, rather than coming up with one-size-fits-all approaches to all members of a species. And she puts this point across in straightforward language and by way of many examples from her own experience.

This is one of the most imaginative, exciting, and accessible books of philosophy to appear in the past 25 years. Not all of it is about empathy, but one especially terrific chapter is. Fricker argues that we do people a “hermeneutical injustice” when our language and concepts leave no room for a ready way of understanding their experience (her example is how people responded to women who were sexually pressured in the workplace, before the phrase "sexual harrassment" was coined). And the cure for this problem, she says, is empathy:  opening ourselves to the person telling us about their experience, and trying to feel our way into how they understood it, even if we are initially baffled by it.

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.

Of all of the competencies that repeatedly predict effective leadership and creating and maintaining of key relationships, is empathy. At the heart of any relationship and perhaps the only antidote to rampant narcissism in our society is empathy. As a prominent psychiatrist and scholar, Helen chronicles decades of research and explains the neural mechanisms that enable us to relate to others, build better relationships ad even inspire others. Her personal stories and those of patients and colleagues make the research come alive with compassion and meaning.

All I needed was the view from inside a psychopath, and there aren’t many reliable ones out there, but hey, guess what, this one is—because it’s written by a self-diagnosed psychopath who’s also a neuroscientist!

I loved this one as the inside view is that extra layer of nuance I needed to build into one of my main characters—understanding how they think and process from their perspective is crucial in making my psychopath real. Bonus here is that the author’s absolutely honest, describing his behaviours, what he didn’t see impacting on those around him,and then adding in how they felt and reacted. Very valuable.

This book is indispensable for highly empathic souls. From it, I learned a great deal about what emotions are and how to manage them for positive purposes. Touching on empathy, the book dives deeply into reacting versus responding, especially in the face of life’s inevitable challenges. What can emotionally sensitive people do when the feelings become overwhelming and nearly unbearable or when they absorb chaotic emotional energy from outside themselves? This book helps guide the way, encouraging readers to get to the root of issues by maintaining self-awareness and always returning to a place of loving-kindness both toward others and oneself.

Psychologist Judith Orloff would go on to write the bestselling Empath’s Survival Guide and other works specifically for self-identifying empaths. I found this book and her others to be brilliantly helpful. If other book reviews are any indication, her work continues to profoundly assist developing empaths in their lives—my… show more.

Outside Is the Ocean reads like a novel, with stories interlinked and main characters growing more faceted as you read. The book centers on Heike, who left her native Germany after the war to settle in America, and her son Stewart, who both loves her and yearns for freedom from the drama she creates. Lansburgh presents a fascinating portrait of Heike at various junctures in her life, with a small cast of characters orbiting around her. Be prepared to be drawn into Heike’s chaotic world as you read, and to oscillate back and forth between shock and empathy. This is a book about family and enduring bonds between mother and son. That it is so beautifully crafted only adds to the delight. 

This book snuck up on me. It’s a lovely story of hope and the strength of the human spirit, featuring three ordinary people living their lives who are suddenly tied together by the tragedy of an accidental death.

I love Hooper’s descriptions of their attempts to muddle through pain and loss, seeking reconciliation and a path forward. This book finds a more upbeat ending than the others on my list, as forgiveness, hope, empathy, and the possibility of a new life come shining through. I love the writer’s obvious compassion for all her characters.