100 Books Like Right Hand, Left Hand

Lisa Barrett is one of the most respected researchers in psychology today in part because she is unafraid to debunk the comforting misconceptions we have about our minds, and especially about our emotions. Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain dispels myths about emotion, and about our reptilian brain, among others. One of the most important lessons in the book is that your brain is not for thinking—it is primarily for myriad other processes of maintaining internal organs, blood oxygenation, energy consumption level, balance, and for performing a host of other tasks. But for Barrett, it’s not just about debunking. She has a compelling vision of how the brain actually does work. Not only does she have deep expertise in human behavior, brain anatomy, evolution, and neurochemistry, her vision of how our minds work is also described in energetic prose.

Neuroscientist György Buzsáki believes that focusing on human mental constructs (imagination, attention, instinct) gets in the way of seeing things from the brain’s perspective. Rather than being a blank slate waiting for experiences to etch new pictures onto it, the brain comes equipped with a huge reserve of built-in patterns, each one created by connected groups of neurons. In his view, memory formation is a game of matching those patterns with meaningful experiences so that your brain can better predict the future and the consequences of your actions. I walked away from this book with my brain very much changed. 

Thanks to Freud, one of the most cherished ideas in psychology is that we have an unconscious. Yet because it is by definition inaccessible, our unconscious is almost impossible to study scientifically. Freud himself certainly didn’t provide much reliable evidence for its existence. Nick Chater, a respected researcher of language and perception, argues that little if any evidence for an unconscious drive exists even now, almost a century after Freud. With lively and pugnacious arguments drawn from fascinating and diverse discoveries about language and perception, Chater deconstructs the unconscious and argues instead for a human mind that is inherently dynamic and in-the-moment. When I have assigned this book to my undergraduate students studying perception it has provoked some of the most heated debates, which is how I know it is a great book!

No idea in psychology is more attractive than the notion that we have evolved to be super-amazing in terms of certain traits: our logic, mating strategies, food gathering techniques, emotional reactions, are all the best that they can be because evolution settles for nothing less. Daniel Milo, a philosopher of biology, shows instead that evolution almost always settles for “good enough” rather than what is optimal. From the size of our kidneys to our procreative abilities, what matters is what is workable, not what is best. This idea is widely supported, but still unorthodox in evolutionary psychology—and even in parts of evolutionary biology. Breaking out of rigid beliefs that the way things are is the best of all possible worlds is a liberating experience, and one well articulated by Milo.

After reading this book, I discovered a new art form.

Lucia was a multifaceted creative professional. She collaborated with schools to train teachers in creative journal writing, developed a method called "healing the inner child," and co-wrote The Arts in Schools program with L.A. school officials.

The book discusses brain functions and ways to enhance creativity. The author recounts her experiment with drawing and writing using her non-dominant hand and encourages readers to try it themselves.

I tried it out as a test subject, and instead of drawing upside down, the author asked me to write a question with my dominant hand and answer it with the other.

The answers were unexpectedly profound, and drawing with my non-dominant hand was an eye-opener.

My students loved this process.

The illustrations are marvelous and the story is a peek into what it’s like for a child that is different in Russian culture. As a left-handed child she is forced to write and do nearly everything with her right hand except draw. This is the author’s personal story and you can see from the art that her drawing is amazing. I added this book to my list as Russia tops the headlines these days and remembering that children in Russia are just children with their own stories to tell feels important. Also, it’s an incredible book. 

Garth Nix is an amazing author, and this is his most memorable book, as far as I’m concerned. While it’s sold as an adult book, the sharp-eyed reader will note the ties to Susan Cooper's famous The Dark is Rising. I remember it as a fantastic story, but returning to it was like returning to The Greatest American Hero.

So that’s where this book comes in handy. It’s modern, it’s fresh, and it has tight ties to mythology—not unlike Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London. I also greatly respected that Garth Nix acknowledged his muse openly and with little Easter eggs. He even called the main character Susan! I adored this fast-paced, updated adventure of page-turning fun.  

When I read this at 17, I bounced off it, surprising since I'd loved every previous Zelazny. It wasn’t until a reread in my thirties that it finally clicked, becoming a favorite book by a favorite author. In retrospect, I didn’t yet have the depth of experience to see beneath the surface simplicity to the brilliantly conceived complexity visible to the reader with a bit more knowledge and breadth of literary background.

Wit shines on every page, from dialogue to description to an offbeat chapter-a-day structure highlighting each night in a most singular October.

The wild includes plenty of murder and mayhem as a cast of sorcerers that includes Dracula, Rasputin, and Burke & Hare are all colliding in a struggle for the power to shape the world through the once-a-century Lonesome October.

The weird stretches from the story of a most sympathetic serial killer to the way it's told… show more.

A time travel book that is clever and fast paced. Spoiled Hollywood types.

A trip back to Victorian London and a fateful meeting with Jack The Ripper. What’s not to love? As a matter of fact, I loved the female lead, Madison Taylor, so much that I included her (with permission) as a cross-over character in my latest novel, Finding Jimmy Moran.

Enough said.  

Victorian serial killer Jack the Ripper and fictional detective Sherlock Holmes have squared off countless times on screen and in various novels to varying degrees of success, but for me, this is the best story pitting the still unidentified serial killer against the most famous of fictional detectives.

Steeped in an immersive Victorian atmosphere and detail that drew me in, Hanna also effectively breathes life into several historical figures associated with the notorious case while remaining faithful to Arthur Conan Doyle's overall spirit.

In my opinion, Hanna’s version of Holmes subtly suggests inspiration was drawn from the late great Jeremy Brett, arguably the finest screen Holmes, while also giving Dr. Watson his intellectual due.