Here are 100 books that Practical Wisdom fans have personally recommended if you like
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It has always seemed to me that humans underestimate the abilities—and particularly the conscious lives—of non-human animals. We, humans, are not apart from (and above) but live in a continuum of consciousness with the rest of life. All these books share stories of relationships between human and non-human animals. They make clear that we are connected to and part of all life on Earth. We are all in this together, and we better take good care of our shared natural living world.
Godfrey-Smith is a philosopher, but also an avid diver.
This is an engaging and readable philosophical examination of the mind of a very different kind of creature, an octopus. He grounds his thoughts both in his many diving interactions with octopuses and in what we know of the evolution of life—and mind—on Earth.
'Brilliant' Guardian 'Fascinating and often delightful' The Times
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 ROYAL SOCIETY SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE
What if intelligent life on Earth evolved not once, but twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter?
In Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a bold new story of how nature became aware of itself - a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared.
Tracking the mind's fitful development from unruly clumps of…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
As an interdisciplinary scholar with professional musical training, I surveyed the literature in cognitive science for conceptual frameworks that would shed light on tacit processes in musical activity. I was tired of research that treats the musician either as a “lab rat” not quite capable of fully understanding what they do or as a “channel” for the mysterious and divine. I view musicians as human beings who engage in meaningful activity with instruments and with each other. Musicians are knowledgeable, skilled, and deeply creative. The authors on this list turn a scientific lens on human activity that further defines how we make ourselves through meaningful work and interactions.
This is a moving and profound book about how to reclaim our sense of self through meaningful activities and relationships. Crawford carefully studies how our attention is manipulated in various modern contexts, and what we can do to reclaim our sense of individuality. It is a book that underscores the importance of dealing with the real world—the people we encounter and the objects we use. This is the book that might convince you to take up knitting or the guitar. At the very least, it will help you understand some of what you gain by doing those things.
In his bestselling book Shop Class as Soulcraft, Matthew B. Crawford explored the ethical and practical importance of manual competence, as expressed through mastery of our physical environment. In his brilliant follow-up, The World Beyond Your Head, Crawford investigates the challenge of mastering one's own mind.
We often complain about our fractured mental lives and feel beset by outside forces that destroy our focus and disrupt our peace of mind. Any defense against this, Crawford argues, requires that we reckon with the way attention sculpts the self.
Crawford investigates the intense focus of ice hockey players and short-order chefs,…
As an interdisciplinary scholar with professional musical training, I surveyed the literature in cognitive science for conceptual frameworks that would shed light on tacit processes in musical activity. I was tired of research that treats the musician either as a “lab rat” not quite capable of fully understanding what they do or as a “channel” for the mysterious and divine. I view musicians as human beings who engage in meaningful activity with instruments and with each other. Musicians are knowledgeable, skilled, and deeply creative. The authors on this list turn a scientific lens on human activity that further defines how we make ourselves through meaningful work and interactions.
I love the way Malafouris delves into deeply philosophical questions about the boundaries of the mind. Working from the perspective of cognitive archeology, he broadly examines what makes us human in our engagement with objects and each other. Why does it help to understand the mind this way? Whenever we want to learn more about how we do the things we do, theories like Malafouris’material engagement theory can help us to organize familiar tasks and situations in a way that makes the underlying cognitive processes transparent. If you want to improve your performance in any area, conceptual frameworks like this one (and the one in my book) can bring tacit processes into focus.
An account of the different ways in which things have become cognitive extensions of the human body, from prehistory to the present.
An increasingly influential school of thought in cognitive science views the mind as embodied, extended, and distributed rather than brain-bound or “all in the head.” This shift in perspective raises important questions about the relationship between cognition and material culture, posing major challenges for philosophy, cognitive science, archaeology, and anthropology. In How Things Shape the Mind, Lambros Malafouris proposes a cross-disciplinary analytical framework for investigating the ways in which things have become cognitive extensions of the human body.…
This book is an elegiac meditation on the will to survive. Tor, a beluga whaler, and his wife, Astrid, a botanist specializing in Arctic flora, are stranded during the dark season of 1937-38 at his remote whaling station in the Svalbard archipelago when they misjudge ice conditions and fail to…
As an interdisciplinary scholar with professional musical training, I surveyed the literature in cognitive science for conceptual frameworks that would shed light on tacit processes in musical activity. I was tired of research that treats the musician either as a “lab rat” not quite capable of fully understanding what they do or as a “channel” for the mysterious and divine. I view musicians as human beings who engage in meaningful activity with instruments and with each other. Musicians are knowledgeable, skilled, and deeply creative. The authors on this list turn a scientific lens on human activity that further defines how we make ourselves through meaningful work and interactions.
When I was a musician encountering theory in cognitive science for the first time, this book really moved me. I was searching for conceptual lenses on cognition in instrumental practice and this book is aimed at grounding the study of cognition in the body. I can still see myself sitting at a huge ugly desk under a tiny window thoroughly absorbed in this thrilling page-turner in the philosophy of mind. The book moved me so profoundly that I cried when I approached the last page, and gently closed the back cover. It is a precious book. It changed my world.
"There are books-few and far between-which carefully, delightfully, and genuinely turn your head inside out. This is one of them. It ranges over some central issues in Western philosophy and begins the long overdue job of giving us a radically new account of meaning, rationality, and objectivity."-Yaakov Garb, San Francisco Chronicle
I am a journalist who has written books on American history for the general reader but not an academic historian or specialist, though I have the utmost respect for both. I like to think I have an independent mind and that I look for ideas that challenge conventional wisdom but are rooted in good sense and critical intelligence. The books I have recommended here reflect this temperament and, I believe, an innate sense of the comic and absurd. These are desperately needed at a time when people take themselves much too seriously—as in a presidential election year.
I love this book because Flaubert has meticulously—and with a bracingly acidic intelligence—listed the cliches of his day…meaning what people, without thinking, automatically say about almost any subject, including the stock phrases that must accompany any subject. He exposes superstitions and absurdities that must have driven Flaubert nuts to hear. An American writer, Frank Sullivan, did something similar when he invented “the cliché expert” who would testify before Congress.
I recommend this book because we need to be reminded that our everyday speech and thinking are saturated with thoughtless absurdities. We take so much for granted that it is totally unexamined and ridiculous if it is only pointed out to us, which Flaubert does a masterful job of doing. As the book jacket puts it, “Throughout his life, Flaubert made it a game to eavesdrop for the cliché, the platitude, the borrowed and unquestioned idea with which the ‘right thinking’…
Throughout his life Flaubert made it a game to eavesdrop for the cliche, the platitude, the borrowed and unquestioned idea with which the "right thinking" swaddle their minds. After his death his little treasury of absurdities, of half-truths and social lies, was published as a Dictionnaire des idees recues. Because its devastating humor and irony are often dependent on the phrasing in vernacular French, the Dictionnairewas long considered untranslatable. This notion was taken as a challenge by Jacques Barzun. Determined to find the exact English equivalent for each "accepted idea" Flaubert recorded, he has succeeded in documenting our own inanities.…
Alongside writing poems and short stories, I am a clinical psychologist focusing on the psychology of men. People echo the vastness of the stellar expanse in which only 1% is matter like the planets and stars, our bodies, days in which we love and hate, moments we embody healthy intimacy or enact violence, the light that gives the face radiance. 19% of the universe is dark energy, and 80% dark matter-- less than 1% is light, and yet light is the foundation of life. "God is light," the ancient text intones, and though the words resound, what that light means in the despair of this world is a beloved mystery.
The title story of this collection is a miracle of human relations, ecstatic prose cut to perfection, and the multivalent understandings that arise when we give ourselves freely, openly, and yes brokenly to the will to love. There is nothing so sweet as the kind of development and shaping of humanity found in Davis’ short stories. An author whose work has appeared inBest American Short Storiesand won a Pushcart Prize, Davis is an author who has not received the kind of national following she deserves.
Claire Davis's novels have won acclaim from reviewers, readers, and booksellers alike. In "Labors of the Heart", she offers a stunning first collection of stories, some of which have been honoured by the Pushcart and Best American Short Stories anthologies. Adultery presents the quandary of a middle-aged man whose mother is cheating on her husband by keeping company with her ex-husband. In Grounded, a mother follows her teenage son as he attempts to run away along Montana's highways. And in Labors of the Heart, a lonely man - enormous and virginal - is literally struck by love for a woman…
Tina Edwards loved her childhood and creating fairy houses, a passion shared with her father, a world-renowned architect. But at nine years old, she found him dead at his desk and is haunted by this memory. Tina's mother abruptly moved away, leaving Tina with feelings of abandonment and suspicion.
It has been an incredible journey, starting with $200 in assets 45 years ago and finally starting to achieve what I had dreamed of in life and business after struggling for two decades. I learned through the value of reading and building quality relationships, with God's help, I would be successful in life and business. Based in Cave Creek, Arizona, I've spent my career building Desert Star Construction, known by clients and industry colleagues as "the best team in the luxury home business." It is an online community that helps overwhelmed Christian marketplace leaders rediscover their eternal purpose and find unending joy in their life and leadership.
Excellence comes from two Latin root words which together mean: "to rise out from." Excellence is the quality of rising to one's expected potential. The author finds a way to capture an area we all can get off track. We can be excellent when we stop worrying about being better than someone else. Our destinies are yet to be determined, and we can still become exceptional. Excellence is about leading our lives in a way that we will leave a legacy. Another reason we do not achieve excellence in our personal lives is that so many people are not on a quest for truth and wisdom but instead on a search for pleasure and happiness. We see how doing the right—far exceeds being right. The quotes from John Maxwell and Darren Hardy, among others, give valuable insights that you can start where you are today to Live a Life of…
Life is governed by certain laws and principles. These laws and principles are not “good” or “bad”, “moral” or “immoral”, they are simply true. However, what is so crucial for us to grasp is that these principles actually make life predictable.
Such an understanding creates the potential for more predictable outcomes in our lives. Most significantly, our lives will flourish when they are in harmony with these principles.
"This book lays out three principles that clearly point to a life of excellence. I am convinced that if one lives in accordance with these principles, his or her life will flourish…
I am a faith-based psychotherapist with over twenty years of experience working with couples, families, and adults recovering from trauma and relational wounds. I believe in evidence-based psychotherapy modalities, as well as the power of the Holy Spirit, to guide us each to our ultimate healing. I find journeying with others a sacred privilege and strive to foster love, authenticity, courage, and empowerment not only as a therapist but as a friend, wife, mother, and sister.
This book helped me evaluate my thoughts, actions and beliefs and reconcile to a point where there was true congruence with my heart values.
I loved how this book really challenged me to look at my own intellectual and emotional boundaries as I related to people of different views on life, politics and faith.
A universal pattern can be found in all societies and in fact in all of creation. We see it in the seasons of the year, the stories of Scripture, and even in our own lives.
In The Wisdom Pattern, Father Richard Rohr illuminates the way understanding and embracing this pattern can give us hope in difficult times and the courage to push through messiness - and even great chaos - to find a new way of being in the world.
A new version of his earlier book Hope Against Darkness, Father Rohr offers reflections in The Wisdom Pattern that bring…
As I moved up in leadership, I found I was not prepared to manage people during uncertain and difficult times. Transitions bring about the worst in people. They get fearful and that causes bad behavior by triggering defense mechanisms. The books I listed are a progression of books that helped me to understand how transitions and change affect people and gave me a framework to continue to learn and increase my leadership skills. I then decided to write about new insights I gained in leadership to help others and have published two books and am writing articles on Medium.
I like this book because of the real-life examples of big company CEOs balancing empathy, compassion, and caring with good business acumen. During uncertainty and change, it is harder but even more important to have empathy and compassion for employees. The authors show that leaders with empathy and compassion foster much higher levels of employee engagement, performance, and loyalty in their employees. Authors Hougaard and Carter also provide tools to help managers at all levels.
Leadership is hard. How can you balance compassion for your people with effectiveness in getting the job done?
A global pandemic, economic volatility, natural disasters, civil and political unrest. From New York to Barcelona to Hong Kong, it can feel as if the world as we know it is coming apart. Through it all, our human spirit is being tested. Now more than ever, it's imperative for leaders to demonstrate compassion.
But in hard times like these, leaders need to make hard decisions-deliver negative feedback, make difficult choices that disappoint people, and in some cases lay people off. How do…
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…
I'm an ordinary person who was able to achieve an extraordinary life for myself. My parents, who currently do not own a home, have always struggled to make ends meet. When I left the US Army at 23 with only $3,000 in savings, I quickly spent it while trying to adjust to civilian life in a foreign country. With a limited college education, I turned to books for inspiration. These books provided me with insights into the details behind success stories and changed my mindset. I was motivated to write my own book, Know Money No Problem, to pay it forward and help others achieve their own version of success.
While Don't Worry Make Money may not have been a driving force, it served as a confirmation of my approach to success. This quick read should be the foundation for anyone looking to achieve a better life.
The book is not only enjoyable but also provides a logical path to success. It motivates readers by offering great insights into what truly matters and what doesn't.
To be honest, if you're short on time, just review the table of contents. It reads like a recipe for achieving the American dream. Richard lays out 100 entries that serve as a step-by-step guide to success.
Now in paperback--the #1 "New York Times" bestseller that offers revolutionary strategies for making more while worrying less. Filled with unique, refreshing ideas to spark the interest of even the most overworked business person, this handy guide presents life-changing wisdom to use at home and at the office.
