Here are 100 books that The Pattern Seekers fans have personally recommended if you like
The Pattern Seekers.
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My journey began as a high school camp counselor at the Ability Center of Greater Toledo in Ohio. As I worked with children who had neurodevelopmental differences and collaborated with a co-counselor who had cerebral palsy, I saw how people with differences were marginalized and devalued despite being insightful, empathetic, passionate, funny, and talented. My appreciation for their strengths and perspectives shaped my approach as a pediatric neurologist, BCBA, neuroscientist, researcher, and founder of Cortica, which is focused on a whole-child, neurodivergent-affirming approach to care for autism and other neurodevelopmental differences. Reading is an important way for me to stay connected to the strengths-based lens I began cultivating in my teens.
We live in a world that all too often pathologizes autism and sees autistic people as broken and in need of fixing. In this book, Dr. Barry Prizant sees neurodivergent people through a strengths-based lens.
I appreciate the importance he places on listening to and understanding the experiences of autistic people and how he uses those experiences to illustrate the unique gifts that autistic people bring to the world. Dr. Prizant has helped to inspire the continued evolution of our Cortica clinical care model, and his book highlights the importance of amplifying neurodiverse voices.
Winner of the Autism Society of America’s Dr. Temple Grandin Award for the Outstanding Literary Work in Autism
A groundbreaking book on autism, by one of the world’s leading experts, who portrays autism as a unique way of being human—this is “required reading...Breathtakingly simple and profoundly positive” (Chicago Tribune).
Autism therapy typically focuses on ridding individuals of “autistic” symptoms such as difficulties interacting socially, communication problems, sensory challenges, and repetitive behavior patterns. Now, this updated and expanded edition of Dr. Barry M. Prizant’s Uniquely Human tackles new language such as shifting from “person-first language” to “identity-first language,” diversity of identity…
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…
My journey began as a high school camp counselor at the Ability Center of Greater Toledo in Ohio. As I worked with children who had neurodevelopmental differences and collaborated with a co-counselor who had cerebral palsy, I saw how people with differences were marginalized and devalued despite being insightful, empathetic, passionate, funny, and talented. My appreciation for their strengths and perspectives shaped my approach as a pediatric neurologist, BCBA, neuroscientist, researcher, and founder of Cortica, which is focused on a whole-child, neurodivergent-affirming approach to care for autism and other neurodevelopmental differences. Reading is an important way for me to stay connected to the strengths-based lens I began cultivating in my teens.
Our society places a premium on verbal thinking, but over the course of my career, I’ve had the pleasure of learning from neurodivergent children who see the world around them in images and use those images to solve mundane and complex challenges alike. This book by Temple Grandin has helped me to shift my own mindset as a verbal thinker and appreciate the abilities of those who think in more abstract, non-linear, and systemic ways.
As a BCBA and pediatric neurologist, having the opportunity to hear directly from Grandin, who is autistic, is invaluable. I share her perspective that we do autistic people–and society as a whole–a great disservice when we relegate visual thinkers to the sidelines instead of empowering them to be the artists, designers, engineers, inventors, mechanics, and innovators our world desperately needs.
My journey began as a high school camp counselor at the Ability Center of Greater Toledo in Ohio. As I worked with children who had neurodevelopmental differences and collaborated with a co-counselor who had cerebral palsy, I saw how people with differences were marginalized and devalued despite being insightful, empathetic, passionate, funny, and talented. My appreciation for their strengths and perspectives shaped my approach as a pediatric neurologist, BCBA, neuroscientist, researcher, and founder of Cortica, which is focused on a whole-child, neurodivergent-affirming approach to care for autism and other neurodevelopmental differences. Reading is an important way for me to stay connected to the strengths-based lens I began cultivating in my teens.
I read Jory Fleming's book in just one day, profoundly moved by his insights as the first autistic Rhodes Scholar. This book explores an issue that my patients encounter each day: Namely, how to navigate the nuances and complexities of a world that is designed for neurotypical brains.
Jory’s approach to emotional understanding and social interactions has inspired me to approach life with greater empathy and curiosity, examine the limitations of neurotypical thinking, and further explore the richness of the autistic experience. This book isn't just enlightening; it's a heartfelt reminder of the strength in our differences and the pressing need to bridge those differences with understanding.
An unforgettable, unconventional narrative that examines the many ways to be fully human, told by the first young adult with autism to attend Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.
As a child, Jory Fleming was wracked by uncontrollable tantrums, had no tolerance for people, and couldn't manage the outside world. Slightly more than a decade later, he was bound for England, selected to attend one of the world's premier universities.
How to Be Human explores life amid a world constructed for neurotypical brains when yours is not. But the miracle of this book is that instead of dwelling on Jory's…
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…
My journey began as a high school camp counselor at the Ability Center of Greater Toledo in Ohio. As I worked with children who had neurodevelopmental differences and collaborated with a co-counselor who had cerebral palsy, I saw how people with differences were marginalized and devalued despite being insightful, empathetic, passionate, funny, and talented. My appreciation for their strengths and perspectives shaped my approach as a pediatric neurologist, BCBA, neuroscientist, researcher, and founder of Cortica, which is focused on a whole-child, neurodivergent-affirming approach to care for autism and other neurodevelopmental differences. Reading is an important way for me to stay connected to the strengths-based lens I began cultivating in my teens.
Parents’ and professionals’ judgments of neurodivergent children, which are often based on perceived deficits, can limit those children’s choices and opportunities. Dictating the course of neurodivergent children’s care without involving them as active participants can also have dire, long-lasting consequences.
This book by Martha Leary and Anne Donnellan illustrates the importance of understanding the sensory and movement experiences of autistic people, which is only possible if you take the time to actively listen to those experiences and use them to shape an approach to care. The book helped to inform the care model we use at Cortica and reinforced my commitment to providing a personalized level of support that integrates children’s engagement in the process and honors each child’s unique journey, needs, and strengths.
In 1990, I introduced the idea of emotional intelligence with my colleague Peter Salovey. This was followed, in 2008, with the introduction of the theory of personal intelligence. Emotional, personal, and social intelligence form a group I labeled the “people-centered intelligences,” which are partly distinct from intelligences focused on things such as objects in space and mathematical symbols.
One quality the diverse books I recommend here share in common is that they help us reason about who we are—a key element of personal intelligence.
Okay, this one could surely be part of a list of books on artificial intelligence, but it's more than that: it's about the effects of networks of information—both real and fabricated, hallucinated, or intentionally-distorted —and their evolution and spread over the history of human culture, and secondarily, perhaps, about AI and its growing role as part of those information networks.
Despite a few flaws I found maddening (a brief section early in the book argues that genes don’t carry information), it is a very thoughtful and provocative work.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Sapiens comes the groundbreaking story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world.
“Striking original . . . A historian whose arguments operate on the scale of millennia has managed to capture the zeitgeist perfectly.”—The Economist
“This deeply important book comes at a critical time as we all think through the implications of AI and automated content production. . . . Masterful and provocative.”—Mustafa Suleyman, author of The Coming Wave
For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite allour discoveries, inventions, and conquests,…
In 2011, after years reporting on media and technology for Wired, I published The Art of Immersion, about how digital technology is changing the way we tell stories. Then I joined Columbia University’s Digital Storytelling Lab, started the executive education course Strategic Storytelling, and put together the toolkit that inspired The Sea We Swim In. The ostensible subject of all this was storytelling, but the common thread, I came to realize, was the role stories play: They facilitate pattern recognition, the skill we need to make sense of our random world. The pattern that’s governed the past 15 years of my life, in other words, has been pattern recognition.
Gladwell became famous for uncovering patterns in the social behavior of humans; I wanted to find the patterns—some would say formulas—that characterize his books. Why are these books so popular? Why are critics so disdainful?
Here he revisits his first, a huge bestseller, and finds that the model of viral contagion that seemed hopeful and bright a quarter-century ago now looks dark and foreboding.
What makes both books work is a combination of diligent reporting, narrative sleight-of-hand, and a nose for patterns. “There must be a set of rules,” he writes, “buried somewhere below the surface.” No, his rules don’t always hold. But our need for patterns that explain the chaos around us has a lot to do with his success.
Most Anticipated in: AARP | Associated Press | Time Magazine | Oprah Daily | Chicago Tribune | Literary Hub | Publishers Weekly | Publishers Lunch
Twenty-five years after the publication of his groundbreaking first book, Malcolm Gladwell returns with a brand-new volume that reframes the lessons of The Tipping Point in a startling and revealing light.
Why is Miami…Miami? What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children? Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports? What is the Magic Third, and what does…
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…
In 2011, after years reporting on media and technology for Wired, I published The Art of Immersion, about how digital technology is changing the way we tell stories. Then I joined Columbia University’s Digital Storytelling Lab, started the executive education course Strategic Storytelling, and put together the toolkit that inspired The Sea We Swim In. The ostensible subject of all this was storytelling, but the common thread, I came to realize, was the role stories play: They facilitate pattern recognition, the skill we need to make sense of our random world. The pattern that’s governed the past 15 years of my life, in other words, has been pattern recognition.
The most basic, the most life-determining story is the one you tell yourself about yourself. Who are you? How did you get to be that way? And by the way, what is reality?
I reviewed this book for The Wall Street Journal and found it eye-opening. I was struck by Berns’s account of “how other people’s narratives worm their way into our brains,” creating a consensus version of reality he calls “a shared delusion.”
This delusion can become self-limiting, even self-destructive. And so we have counterfactuals, the narratives of possibiity that allow us to escape these constraints—to change our story, if we have the will to do so.
A New York Times–bestselling author reveals how the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, are critical to our lives
We all know we tell stories about ourselves. But as psychiatrist and neuroscientist Gregory Berns argues in The Self Delusion, we don't just tell stories; we are the stories. Our self-identities are fleeting phenomena, continually reborn as our conscious minds receive, filter, or act on incoming information from the world and our memories.
Drawing on new research in neuroscience, social science, and psychiatry, Berns shows how our stories and our self-identities are temporary and therefore ever changing. Berns shows how we…
In 2011, after years reporting on media and technology for Wired, I published The Art of Immersion, about how digital technology is changing the way we tell stories. Then I joined Columbia University’s Digital Storytelling Lab, started the executive education course Strategic Storytelling, and put together the toolkit that inspired The Sea We Swim In. The ostensible subject of all this was storytelling, but the common thread, I came to realize, was the role stories play: They facilitate pattern recognition, the skill we need to make sense of our random world. The pattern that’s governed the past 15 years of my life, in other words, has been pattern recognition.
This book addresses the key problem with pattern recognition: Why do we see patterns that don’t exist? And why are these patterns so often dark?
We assume that what our eyes see is actually there, and what our brains comprehend is real. Not necessarily so, but try telling that to your brain.
Confirmation bias leads us to filter out facts that challenge what we think. In any dispute, no matter the evidence, each side remains convinced it’s right and the other side is delusional. And because the brain always wants an explanation, it’s easy to conclude that there’s a secret set of rules, maybe even a secret cabal that enforces them.
Brotherton argues convincingly that conspiracy theories aren’t restricted to a bunch of paranoid kooks; they’re just a function of being human.
We're all conspiracy theorists. Some of us just hide it better than others.
Conspiracy theorists do not wear tin-foil hats (for the most part). They are not just a few kooks lurking on the paranoid fringes of society with bizarre ideas about shape-shifting reptilian aliens running society in secret. They walk among us. They are us.
Everyone loves a good conspiracy. Yet conspiracy theories are not a recent invention. And they are not always a harmless curiosity. In Suspicious Minds, Rob Brotherton explores the history and consequences of conspiracism, and delves into the research…
Mothering a child with special needs was a journey I didn’t expect to be taking and one that has been immensely challenging. I am always seeking ways to become my best self and the best mother I can be, helping my children be their best selves. I want my children to feel supported, loved, and like they can be their truest, fullest selves. These books helped me connect with my children in the ways that were the most helpful, impactful, and loving. They guided me in running a Son-Rise Program, which was by far the most influential thing I ever did to help my daughter with autism and developmental delays.
I don’t know what could be more inspiring than hearing from someone who experienced the Son-Rise Program as the recipient of the program. I knew that Raun had changed immensely thanks to the program his parents ran for him, but I loved reading Raun’s perspective on his own journey as the original Son-Rise son.
I loved the straightforward way he explains the Son-Rise Program because I can always use reminders for how to best meet my daughter where she is. Reading this book felt like a refresher course from my training at the Autism Treatment Center of America and helped me be more of the mom I want to be.
As a boy, Raun Kaufman was diagnosed by multiple experts as severely autistic, with an IQ below 30, and destined to spend his life in an institution. Years later, Raun graduated with a degree in Biomedical Ethics from Brown University and has become a passionate and articulate spokesperson for the autism community. So what happened? Thanks to Son-Rise, an incredible program his parents created, Raun experienced a full recovery from autism. In Autism Breakthrough, Kaufman presents the ground-breaking principles behind the program that helped him, and so many other families with special children. Kaufman explains that autism is frequently misunderstood…
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…
As a young businessperson in London in my early 30s, I was as ignorant of neurodiversity as much of the rest of the world. In the mid-2010s, I got fascinated by the topic thanks to conversations with autistic family members, who encouraged me to bring some of my expertise in corporate diversity programs to the field of “neurodiversity at work”. The topic of neurodiversity chimed with me, too, as I’d suffered a traumatic brain injury in a serious car accident, and there were aspects I could relate to. I founded neurodiversity training company Uptimize to help ensure organizations across the world understand how the importance of embracing and leveraging different types of thinkers.
Neurodiversity is simply a reality of our species… so why are we only talking about this now in society and in the workplace?
I loved this collection of essays and reminiscences by key figures in the early neurodiversity movement, and found the stories within both touching and inspiring and even humorous (ever heard of the “Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical”?).
Here is where we can get an answer to the “why now” question: for the global neurodiversity conversation of the 2020s can be traced directly to these pioneers, their activism, and their determination to change the world.
This open access book marks the first historical overview of the autism rights branch of the neurodiversity movement, describing the activities and rationales of key leaders in their own words since it organized into a unique community in 1992. Sandwiched by editorial chapters that include critical analysis, the book contains 19 chapters by 21 authors about the forming of the autistic community and neurodiversity movement, progress in their influence on the broader autism community and field, and their possible threshold of the advocacy establishment. The actions covered are legendary in the autistic community, including manifestos such as "Don't Mourn for…
