Here are 100 books that Predisposed fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve always had equally balanced interests in the arts/humanities and the natural sciences. I like to think that I inherited much of this from my analytical “algebraic” mother, who was a nurse and tended to our family finances, and my holistic “geometrical” father, who was a carpenter. It’s probably no accident that my double major in college was in physics and philosophy...and, down the line, that I should develop a focused interest in human brain laterality, where the division between analysis and holism is so prominent.
This is an expansive treatment of the intellectual and cultural ramifications of the bilateral mind from ancient times to the present. The dominance of the analytic left hemisphere (the “emissary”), McGilchrist fears, threatens to usurp its experience-grounded “master” – to the detriment of human culture.
While The Master and His Emissary and The Origin of Consciousness cover similar topics, it is interesting and important to note that there are areas where their perspectives complement each other and those where they differ, such as their accounts of schizophrenia. I still find myself vacillating between the two. I sometimes wonder
whether my indecision may itself be the result of my own hemispheric
split.
A pioneering exploration of the differences between the brain's right and left hemispheres and their effects on society, history, and culture-"one of the few contemporary works deserving classic status" (Nicholas Shakespeare, The Times, London)
"Persuasively argues that our society is suffering from the consequences of an over-dominant left hemisphere losing touch with its natural regulative 'master' the right. Brilliant and disturbing."-Salley Vickers, a Guardian Best Book of the Year
"I know of no better exposition of the current state of functional brain neuroscience."-W. F. Bynum, TLS
Why is the brain divided? The difference between right and left hemispheres has been…
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…
At age sixteen, I traveled from Pennsylvania to Alaska’s wilderness to live for three months. I took Einstein’s book on relativity. My mind swirled and expanded. The next year, I wrote a paper for high school titled My Universe in Four Realities. Seven years later, I read Julian Jaynes’ book on consciousness. The epiphanies rolled in. The reality we’re taught to believe in always rang false to me. When I learned the inside tricks lawmakers use to stop Americans from blocking environmentally harmful industrial actions, I wrote a book about it. I’m passionate about exposing deceit, whether cultural or legal. These books helped.
Here’s a book that rearranged my thinking mind and opened a whole new universe of wonder to me. Digging deep for some way to understand how and why my conscious mind can construct a subjectively experienced universe in which I live and move was made a less lonely task when I encountered Julian Jaynes’ mind-blowing archaeology of subjective experience.
I was grateful to have some knowledge of ancient literature because I was taken on a tour not only of the words of the ancients but of the world they seem to have experienced subjectively, as revealed in their way of expressing themselves. The notion that subjective consciousness has not always existed as it does now for humans never seemed controversial to me, but the theory outlined here about HOW that evolution happened had me recommending this book frequently.
At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion -- and indeed our future.
My family moved to Italy when I was six, and I attended Italian first grade in a fishing village where I had to rely on reading body language as I didn’t grasp the language for a bit. Fortunately for me, Italians have lots of body language to read so I could navigate the inevitable cliques and power dynamics evident even at the elementary school level. From that experience to being taken to view the Dachau concentration camp a year later, I’ve always been sensitive to how “the other” gets treated—often unfairly—and the role leaders can play for good or evil.
Emotions and emotional intelligence (EQ) aren’t taught in business school, and are rarely evident in abundance in the corner offices of CEOs. And yet here’s one ready to admit to the errors of his earlier ways, and to have adjusted his leadership style at Best Buy accordingly. If it can happen in business, why not in politics, too, perhaps saving us from leaders who lack empathy.
How to unleash "human magic" and achieve improbable results.
Hubert Joly, former CEO of Best Buy and orchestrator of the retailer's spectacular turnaround, unveils his personal playbook for achieving extraordinary outcomes by putting people and purpose at the heart of business.
Back in 2012, "Everyone thought we were going to die," says Joly. Eight years later, Best Buy was transformed as Joly and his team rebuilt the company into one of the nation's favorite employers, vastly increased customer satisfaction, and dramatically grew Best Buy's stock price. Joly and his…
Across America, a wave of brutal, inexplicable killings leaves hardened detectives and desperate federal agents grasping for answers.
But what appears to be vigilante terror is something far more ancient - an invisible war between the forces of light and the agents of darkness, playing out on the streets of…
A part of me is reluctant to recommend books on art. The same part of me is reluctant to write books on art. After all, a work of art should speak for itself. Then I remembered that for most contemporary art shows, a catalog is produced, and that catalog typically features an explanatory essay by some sympathetic scholar or critic. If the art of today requires verbal elaboration, how much more will the art of the past—especially the remote past—require such commentary? These recommendations are a selection of some favorite texts about how art comes into being—and is part of our being.
Not much in common between Gombrich and Berger, ideologically—so I would presume. Yet Berger’s social history of Western art, woven into the rise of capitalism, advertising, and mass media, is similarly direct in style.
It irritates me; it’s supposed to irritate. Given its radical energy, the book seems surprisingly undated. First published in 1972, it also still seems adventurous in design—the art book as a work of art.
"Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.""But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but word can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled."John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" is one of the most stimulating and the most influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about…
My family moved to Italy when I was six, and I attended Italian first grade in a fishing village where I had to rely on reading body language as I didn’t grasp the language for a bit. Fortunately for me, Italians have lots of body language to read so I could navigate the inevitable cliques and power dynamics evident even at the elementary school level. From that experience to being taken to view the Dachau concentration camp a year later, I’ve always been sensitive to how “the other” gets treated—often unfairly—and the role leaders can play for good or evil.
Armed with the latest findings in neurobiology, the author explores how profoundly emotions drive our behavior and “thinking.” Why the air quotes around the word, thinking? The answer is that fMRI brain scan data reveals that most decision-making is basically emotionally driven, intuitive, and super quick, i.e. under a second.
You make hundreds of decisions every day, from what to eat for breakfast to how to influence people, and not one of them could be made without the essential component of emotion. It has long been held that thinking and feeling are separate and opposing forces in our behaviour. But as best-selling author Leonard Mlodinow tells us, extraordinary advances in psychology and neuroscience have proven that emotions are as critical to our well being as thinking.
How can you connect better with others? How can you improve your relationship to frustration, fear, and anxiety? What can you do to live…
My family moved to Italy when I was six, and I attended Italian first grade in a fishing village where I had to rely on reading body language as I didn’t grasp the language for a bit. Fortunately for me, Italians have lots of body language to read so I could navigate the inevitable cliques and power dynamics evident even at the elementary school level. From that experience to being taken to view the Dachau concentration camp a year later, I’ve always been sensitive to how “the other” gets treated—often unfairly—and the role leaders can play for good or evil.
Trust is, indeed, the emotion of business but it’s also just a starting point. The endpoint is by contrast to be delayed as long as possible, as retaining workers is best achieved by making them feel appreciated and given respect and a fair degree of autonomy. Great leaders can follow this recipe whether in business, the non-profit sector, or beyond.
Emmy Award-winning speaker Clint Pulver-aka the Undercover Millennial-shares insights gleaned from more than ten thousand undercover interviews with employees across the country, revealing the best methods for identifying talent, building a sense of ownership, and developing a successful workplace culture that employees will love. You'll also learn the number one driver of employee turnover (spoiler: it has everything to do with you!), what you can do to stop an exodus, and how to build a team that really works. Soon, you'll be recognizing possibilities where others see problems, and capturing the power…
The Amazing Afterlife of Animals
by
Karen A. Anderson,
My book is for anyone grieving the loss of a beloved pet. If your heart feels shattered and you are searching for understanding, comfort, and connection, these chapters were written with you in mind.
I share uplifting and life-changing stories that help you move beyond the devastation of grief, including…
I’ve always had equally balanced interests in the arts/humanities and the natural sciences. I like to think that I inherited much of this from my analytical “algebraic” mother, who was a nurse and tended to our family finances, and my holistic “geometrical” father, who was a carpenter. It’s probably no accident that my double major in college was in physics and philosophy...and, down the line, that I should develop a focused interest in human brain laterality, where the division between analysis and holism is so prominent.
Utilizing data from split-brain patients (whose left and right cerebral hemispheres had been surgically separated), the authors of this book focus on how our “two minds” yield a unitary consciousness.
This is the book that first lit the fire of inquiry for me. The whole idea was to understand the “integrated” mind by first understanding the minds of individuals that had been divided by severing the corpus callosum (which connected their two cerebral hemispheres) in order to alleviate medically intractable epilepsy.
It was suggested that in such individuals, their “minds” were divided as well. Yet some later studies did suggest that some intercommunication (through other channels) did survive.
In this book we are trying to illuminate the persistent and nag ging questions of how mind, life, and the essence of being relate to brain mechanisms. We do that not because we have a commit ment to bear witness to the boring issue of reductionism but be cause we want to know more about what it's all about. How, in deed, does the brain work? How does it allow us to love, hate, see, cry, suffer, and ultimately understand Kepler's laws? We try to uncover clues to these staggering questions by con sidering the results of our studies on…
I’ve always had equally balanced interests in the arts/humanities and the natural sciences. I like to think that I inherited much of this from my analytical “algebraic” mother, who was a nurse and tended to our family finances, and my holistic “geometrical” father, who was a carpenter. It’s probably no accident that my double major in college was in physics and philosophy...and, down the line, that I should develop a focused interest in human brain laterality, where the division between analysis and holism is so prominent.
A comprehensive account by a pioneer of the discipline.
This book provides an overview of the relatively new discipline (in 1975) of “cognitive science,” so much so that I wondered whether I should have switched over from philosophy (I did not). It displays the breadth and depth of the discipline, which convinced me that one could no more be an expert in cognitive science in general than an expert in physics in general, biology in general, or philosophy in general.
This book is certainly a must-read for anyone interested either in the discipline itself or even in a corner of it, such as human brain laterality. (Be sure to see “hemispheres” in the index of this book.)
I’ve been fascinated by the question of ‘what does success look like’ throughout my life: from growing up, to becoming an Olympic rower, to working as a diplomat in high-pressure situations and conflict-affected environments, to becoming a parent, and now my current work as a leadership and culture coach in organisations across business, sport, and education. History and social conventions have led us to define success in ever narrower ways; I wanted to help us understand that and redefine success more
meaningfully, for the long-term. I think it’s a question in all our minds - I hope you enjoy the books on this list as you reflect on what success looks like for you!
Fascinated as I am with definitions of success across society, from sport to business, education to politics, Jon Alexander’s book really fired my brain up with how we could reinvent our political systems in order to better address the challenges of our time.
Politics is the area where I have found that definitions of success – dominated by winning elections in the short-term – get in the way of effective performance, in this case, governing countries.
Jon Alexander uses practical examples from around the world to show how we could rethink our role as citizens and proactively create collaborative, caring, creative communities, organisations, and nations.
Jose Castillo is a cynical, wise-cracking Cuban-American who restores classic cars. He’s also a private eye whose sarcastic ways sometimes get him into trouble.
One day, in the process of installing a four-barrel carburetor on a 1965 Mustang, into his shop walks trouble—in the shape of a mysterious, beautiful woman…
I'm super passionate about educating people on how to empower themselves and change the world. I do a lot of different things for a living. And my organization CANVAS works with the groups who are involved in the pro-democracy struggles and “art of the revolution.” Starting as a student activist in my homeland, ruled by ruthless dictator Slobodan Milosevic, I was blessed to meet and work with some of the most courageous people. Throughout the last 25 years, I've tried to capture, share, and transfer successful tools common people may use in order to address injustice, inequality, or small tangible problems through mobilizing their peers – and thus make their communities or the world a better place.
Rocking the activist world for more than 30 years, Saul Alinsky's inspiring book takes you through the main concept of understanding what drives social change. Why anger is important to move people, but destructive force per se? Why do we also need hope to drive positive change? And how the pathway to revolution is paved by small tangible victories, Alinsky has it all!
“This country's leading hell-raiser" (The Nation) shares his impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive social change and know “the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one.”
First published in 1971 and written in the midst of radical political developments whose direction Alinsky was one of the first to question, this volume exhibits his style at its best. Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American…
