Here are 100 books that Language of Vision fans have personally recommended if you like Language of Vision. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding

Frank Jacobus Author Of Archi Graphic: An Infographic Look at Architecture

From my list on design sensing.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a designer, a teacher, a father, a husband, and a friend. I love beautiful things and personally want to know why I find certain things more beautiful than others. I love learning about the world and finding connections between everyday experience and art. When I say “art” I really am blending art, design, architecture, landscape architecture, product design, etc. I believe everything is connected in some way. If I were to pigeonhole myself in any way I would call myself a generalist design thinker. I draw, I write, I make little objects, I make big objects – I see very little difference in any of these things.

Frank's book list on design sensing

Frank Jacobus Why Frank loves this book

This book provides the reader with a foundation as to how we think through our bodily experience in the world. It argues that we think through the body and through experience and that bodily engagement with the world (organism-environment interaction) is used to develop more abstract modes of thought.

I find this key to understanding design generally.

By Mark Johnson ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Meaning of the Body as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In "The Meaning of the Body", Mark Johnson continues his pioneering work on the exciting connections between cognitive science, language, and meaning first begun in the classic "Metaphors We Live By". Johnson uses recent research into infant psychology to show how the body generates meaning even before self-consciousness has fully developed. From there he turns to cognitive neuroscience to further explore the bodily origins of meaning, thought, and language and examines the many dimensions of meaning - including images, qualities, emotions, and metaphors - that are all rooted in the body's physical encounters with the world. Drawing on the psychology…


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Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…

Book cover of Art As Experience

Frank Jacobus Author Of Archi Graphic: An Infographic Look at Architecture

From my list on design sensing.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a designer, a teacher, a father, a husband, and a friend. I love beautiful things and personally want to know why I find certain things more beautiful than others. I love learning about the world and finding connections between everyday experience and art. When I say “art” I really am blending art, design, architecture, landscape architecture, product design, etc. I believe everything is connected in some way. If I were to pigeonhole myself in any way I would call myself a generalist design thinker. I draw, I write, I make little objects, I make big objects – I see very little difference in any of these things.

Frank's book list on design sensing

Frank Jacobus Why Frank loves this book

This book is essential to anyone who wants to come into the meaning of art, design, and architecture.

Give it time and it will undoubtedly change your life. Dewey’s central argument is that experience itself is aesthetic, that we need to pay deep attention to the quality inherent in every experience.

By John Dewey ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Art As Experience as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Based on John Dewey's lectures on esthetics, delivered as the first William James Lecturer at Harvard in 1932, Art as Experience has grown to be considered internationally as the most distinguished work ever written by an American on the formal structure and characteristic effects of all the arts: architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and literature.


Book cover of Visual Thinking

Frank Jacobus Author Of Archi Graphic: An Infographic Look at Architecture

From my list on design sensing.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a designer, a teacher, a father, a husband, and a friend. I love beautiful things and personally want to know why I find certain things more beautiful than others. I love learning about the world and finding connections between everyday experience and art. When I say “art” I really am blending art, design, architecture, landscape architecture, product design, etc. I believe everything is connected in some way. If I were to pigeonhole myself in any way I would call myself a generalist design thinker. I draw, I write, I make little objects, I make big objects – I see very little difference in any of these things.

Frank's book list on design sensing

Frank Jacobus Why Frank loves this book

This book outlines how the visual field operates at a psychological level.

I am an architect and cannot believe that we don’t teach straight from this and other Arnheim books more often. If you want to know what is happening to you, why you get chills up your spine when looking at art, read this book.

Arnheim is a psychologist, not a designer, so he breaks art down from this perspective.

By Rudolf Arnheim ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Visual Thinking as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For thirty-five years Visual Thinking has been the gold standard for art educators, psychologists, and general readers alike. In this seminal work, Arnheim, author of "The Dynamics of Architectural Form", "Film as Art", "Toward a Psychology of Art", and "Art and Visual Perception", asserts that all thinking (not just thinking related to art) is basically perceptual in nature, and that the ancient dichotomy between seeing and thinking, between perceiving and reasoning, is false and misleading. This is an indispensable tool for students and for those interested in the arts.


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Book cover of Trusting Her Duke

Trusting Her Duke by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.

Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…

Book cover of The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling and the Making of Cultures

Nayef R.F. Al-Rodhan Author Of Symbiotic Realism: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Understanding International Relations

From my list on understanding the key forces shaping international relations today.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and futurologist with a deep interest in the exponential growth of disruptive technologies and how they have the potential to both foster and hinder the progress of human civilisation. My mission is rooted in Transdisciplinary Philosophy and finding transdisciplinary, equitable, and sustainable solutions to identify, predict, and manage frontier risks and geopolitical fractures, both here on earth and in Outer Space. My work at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, St. Antony’s College (Oxford), and the WEF (as a member of various Global Future Agenda Councils) focuses on the interplay between philosophy, neuroscience, strategic culture, applied history, disruptive technologies, grand strategy, IR theory, and security.

Nayef's book list on understanding the key forces shaping international relations today

Nayef R.F. Al-Rodhan Why Nayef loves this book

Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio dismantles the false divide between biology and culture.

He shows how emotions and the biological drive for balance are at the core of human behavior, values, and institutions. He helps us understand the hidden architecture of global affairs: beneath ideology and strategy lie emotional imperatives that shape cultures and geopolitics. 

Damasio affirms the centrality of human dignity as an evolved need rather than a political abstraction. His insights help illuminate why rational actors on the world stage often behave in ways that reflect fear, pride, or hope more than calculated interest.

His work also aligns with my belief that humans are Emotional Amoral Egoists: human behaviour is driven by emotional impulses, amoral actions, and egoism, in which individuals or states make decisions based on personal self-interest and power rather than ethical principles.

By Antonio Damasio ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Strange Order of Things as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Damasio undertakes nothing less than a reconstruction of the natural history of the universe ... [A] brave and honest book' The New York Times Book Review

The Strange Order of Things is a pathbreaking investigation into homeostasis, the condition of that regulates human physiology within the range that makes possible not only survival but also the flourishing of life.

Antonio Damasio makes clear that we descend biologically, psychologically and even socially from a long lineage that begins with single living cells; that our minds and cultures are linked by an invisible thread to the ways and means of ancient unicellular…


Book cover of How to Speak Chicken: Why Your Chickens Do What They Do & Say What They Say

Erica Hannickel Author Of The Routledge History of American Foodways

From my list on chickens in history and in your backyard.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an American environmental historian with specialties in food and horticulture. I mostly write on alcohol, wine, garden history, and orchids, but I’ve also kept a small flock of backyard chickens since early 2020. In my preparation for my brood, I read every single chicken history and chicken-keeping book available. Here’s the best of the best.

Erica's book list on chickens in history and in your backyard

Erica Hannickel Why Erica loves this book

There are an estimated 50 billion chickens to the world’s 7 billion humans, and chickens are the closest living relative to Tyrannosaurus rex, so why wouldn’t you want to learn their language? This is a fun, fast book to read in anticipation of getting your first little flock. The central lesson in the book is that you should spend time with your chickens--watching them, but also listening to them. The book teaches what their core vocalizations mean, therefore also helping you in caring for their needs. I couldn’t wait to have a "chicken name" assigned to me by my laying ladies!

By Melissa Caughey ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked How to Speak Chicken as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Best-selling author Melissa Caughey knows that backyard chickens are like any favorite pet — fun to spend time with and fascinating to observe. Her hours among the flock have resulted in this quirky, irresistible guide packed with firsthand insights into how chickens communicate and interact, use their senses to understand the world around them, and establish pecking order and roles within the flock. Combining her up-close observations with scientific findings and interviews with other chicken enthusiasts, Caughey answers unexpected questions such as Do chickens have names for each other? How do their eyes work? and How do chickens learn?

Foreword…


Book cover of Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories

Kevin Clouther Author Of Maximum Speed

From my list on literary fiction about the passage of time.

Why am I passionate about this?

I live in the past, even as the wellness industry tells me to be present. I try to be present! Of course, I also worry about the future. Time for me, inexorably, moves both backward and forward. I’m always writing things down, scared of forgetting. How do other people do it? That’s why I read fiction (or one of the reasons). As Philip Roth said of his father in Patrimony, “To be alive, to him, is to be made of memory—to him if a man’s not made of memory, he’s made of nothing.”

Kevin's book list on literary fiction about the passage of time

Kevin Clouther Why Kevin loves this book

Nobody for my dollar moves between front story and back story better than the Canadian author Alice Munro, whose 2013 Nobel Prize was recognition not only for the brilliance of her career but also for the possibilities of the short story as a form.

The final story in the collection Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” is among the most lasting fiction I’ve read, a meditation on memory and its limitations, as well as the compromises people make to help those they love and have hurt.

By Alice Munro ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE® IN LITERATURE 2013

In the her tenth collection (the title story of which is the basis for the new film Hateship Loveship), Alice Munro achieves new heights, creating narratives that loop and swerve like memory, and conjuring up characters as thorny and contradictory as people we know ourselves.
A tough-minded housekeeper jettisons the habits of a lifetime because of a teenager’s practical joke. A college student visiting her brassy, unconventional aunt stumbles on an astonishing secret and its meaning in her own life. An incorrigible philanderer responds with unexpected grace to his wife’s nursing-home romance.…


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Book cover of The Duke's Christmas Redemption

The Duke's Christmas Redemption by Arietta Richmond,

A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.

Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…

Book cover of The Land in Winter

Jennifer Barraclough Author Of No Good Deed

From my list on novels about the psychology of marriage.

Why am I passionate about this?

Over a long lifetime, I’ve been intrigued to observe many variations on the themes of marriage, widowhood, divorce, and adultery among my friends, patients, and clients. The majority of marriages are probably happy, but these are not usually very interesting to write about, so marriages in fiction often involve some kind of conflict which leads to a more or less satisfactory resolution. I am a retired doctor, originally from England, and now living in New Zealand with my second husband, to whom I have been married for over 40 years.

Jennifer's book list on novels about the psychology of marriage

Jennifer Barraclough Why Jennifer loves this book

Early in my medical career, I spent a year as a country GP, also worked in an old county mental asylum, and this book set in the rural west of England brought back many memories of those times.

It involves the relationship between four characters, a doctor and a farmer, and their respective wives. Both women are expecting their first child. Their isolation and hardship during the freezing winter of 1962 increase the tensions among them.

The landscape is vividly described in this detailed and evocative literary novel.

By Andrew Miller ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Land in Winter as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025

Winner of the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2025
Winner of the Winston Graham Historical Prize 2025

A book of the year for the Independent, Guardian, i Newspaper, Good Housekeeping
'Has an uncanny beauty and depth... A novel that travels into the darkest places of history and the strangest corners of the human mind'
GUARDIAN, Summer reads

'Tender, elegant, soulful and perfect. A novel that hits your cells and can be felt there, without your brain really knowing what's happened to it. Superb'
SAMANTHA HARVEY, Booker Prize-winning author of Orbital

'Delicate and devastating'…


Book cover of The Principles Of Psychology

Allan Combs Author Of Consciousness Explained Better: Towards an Integral Understanding of the Multifaceted Nature of Consciousness

From my list on consciousness beyond the brain.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a teacher and professor of psychology and consciousness studies. I have been fascinated by the enigma of consciousness my entire adult life. Over the years I have written and taught in a number of different fields including biology, psychology, history, art, and philosophy, always looking to the nature of consciousness, and always exploring its spiritual dimensions. My writings include the present selection, Consciousness Explained Better, described by Ken Wilber as “the finest book on consciousness in modern times, bar none” and The Radiance of Being, that shared a book of the year award with Nobel laureate Roger Penrose’s book, The Emperor’s New Mind. 

Allan's book list on consciousness beyond the brain

Allan Combs Why Allan loves this book

In my view, this is the finest book on consciousness ever written. William James was one of the leading minds of late 19th and early 20th century America. His book, published in 1890, was written as a textbook for his psychology class at Harvard. At that time “psychology” was understood to be the study of consciousness. Here James introduces consciousness as a “stream of thought,” an idea that later influenced many 20th century thinkers, including American philosopher Alfred North Whitehead and early quantum physicist Niels Bohr. It is written with an elegance and clarity of style to match that of his brother, the writer Henry James.

James’ broad interests in consciousness, seen in this book, is consistent with the fact that he was an original co-founder of The American Society for Psychical Research, and was deeply interested in mediumship and questions regarding mind beyond the brain.

By William James ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Principles Of Psychology as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This edition of William James' masterwork, The Principles of Psychology, contains his original notes, illustrations, tables and charts which clarify the theory described and arguments made.


Appearing in 1890, The Principles of Psychology was a landmark text which established psychology as a serious scientific discipline. William James' compiled a convincing, lengthy and broad thesis, devoting detail and vigorous analysis in every chapter. The text's comprehensiveness and superb presentation played a pivotal role in bringing the science of mental health closer toward the scholarly mainstream.


The entire book is set out intuitively: there are two volumes, each of which has a…


Book cover of Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination

Daniel Silliman Author Of Reading Evangelicals: How Christian Fiction Shaped a Culture and a Faith

From my list on reading about reading.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a journalist and a historian who writes about how American evangelicals are complicated. I was trying to explain Left Behind in graduate school and I talked and talked about the theology in the book—all about the doctrines of the rapture, the antichrist, and the millennium. Then my professor said, “But it’s fiction, right? Why is it fiction? What are people doing when they read a novel instead, of say, a theological treatise?” I had no idea. But it seemed like a good question. That was the spark of Reading Evangelicals. But first, I had to read everything I could find about how readers read and what happens when they do.

Daniel's book list on reading about reading

Daniel Silliman Why Daniel loves this book

I’m cheating a little here, but I made the rules and there’s a little clause in the rules I made that says I can break them as long as I announce that I am breaking them. Herewith, I announce. 

This isn’t a book about readers. It’s a book about watchers—specifically the Dutch audience for the soap opera Dallas. But this book is so good and so wild, it changed forever the way I think about “reception,” including reading. I recommend this book all the time and if you want to understand the freedom and creativity of readers, you have to read it.

By Ien Ang ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Watching Dallas as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Dallas, one of the great internationally-screened soap operas, offers us first and foremost entertainment. But what is it about Dallas that makes that entertainment so successful, and how exactly is its entertainment constructed?


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Book cover of Old Man Country

Old Man Country by Thomas R. Cole,

This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.

In these and other intimate conversations, the book…

Book cover of My Degeneration: A Journey Through Parkinson’s

Camilo Aguirre Author Of What Remains: Personal and Political Histories of Colombia

From my list on international documentary comics about the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

Documentary Comics are this genre of comics in which you can make a community visible, denounce a crime or expose yourself to the world. Being able to dialogue with the world while dialoguing with the reader is amazing. The elements you have to take into account the things you can hide in the silence of a drawing, compelling the reader to read again, to find the easter egg about that thing you really want to talk about. The ways of telling the truth in drawings. All those things are the things that I love about documentary comics.

Camilo's book list on international documentary comics about the world

Camilo Aguirre Why Camilo loves this book

This is not a best-seller graphic novel, you don’t see this book on every bookstore shelf. I discovered it because of Nina Mickwitz’s Documentary Comics. I ordered it from the library network that we had at my grad school. My degeneration is a Jewel of a book in many senses, it is a sincere book, a dialogue that goes through many channels: the images drawn, the text typed, and the way the book was made. The shifting in the line makes you think about the process and the author not just as a character but as a person experiencing the world from certain conditions and telling you about that experience.

By Peter Dunlap-Shohl ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked My Degeneration as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

How does one deal with a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease at the age of forty-three? My Degeneration, by former Anchorage Daily News staff cartoonist Peter Dunlap-Shohl, answers the question with humor and passion, recounting the author's attempt to come to grips with the "malicious whimsy" of this chronic, progressive, and disabling disease. This graphic novel tracks Dunlap-Shohl's journey through depression, the worsening symptoms of the disease, the juggling of medications and their side effects, the impact on relations with family and community, and the raft of mental and physical changes wrought by the malady.

My Degeneration examines the current state…


Book cover of The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding
Book cover of Art As Experience
Book cover of Visual Thinking

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Interested in psychology, language, and presidential biography?

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