Theme
Psychology & Mind
Attention, memory, trauma, habit, and belief — the machinery underneath the decisions people think they reasoned their way to.
44 books
newest read first
A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness
Michael Pollan · 2026 · read Apr 2026Michael Pollan's 2026 follow-on to How to Change Your Mind — moving from the psychedelic-medicine reporting into broader…
Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory's Power to Hold on to What Matters
Charan Ranganath · 2024 · read Jul 2025UC Davis neuroscientist Charan Ranganath's accessible synthesis of contemporary memory research — what memory is biologically,…
Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
David Goggins · 2018 · read Feb 2025Navy SEAL / Army Ranger / ultra-endurance athlete David Goggins's memoir-and-self-help — a brutal childhood,…
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness
Jonathan Haidt · 2024 · read Dec 2024Jonathan Haidt's argument — built from cross-national mental-health data — that smartphones and social media starting around…
Mindfulness: HBR Emotional Intelligence Series
Harvard Business Review · 2017 · read Jun 2024A compact HBR essay collection on mindfulness in the workplace — attention training, stress regulation, decision-making —…
Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things
Adam M. Grant · 2023 · read Jun 2024Adam Grant's argument that achievement is more determined by character skills, learning practices, and opportunity scaffolding…
The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery
Brianna Wiest · 2020 · read May 2024Brianna Wiest's compact self-help framework on self-sabotage as a coherent — if maladaptive — protective response, and the…
Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
Anna Lembke · 2021 · read Jan 2024Stanford addiction psychiatrist Anna Lembke's argument that modern abundance — of food, drugs, porn, screens, shopping — has…
Happiness (HBR Emotional Intelligence Series)
Harvard Business Review · 2017 · read Nov 2023A compact HBR essay collection drawing together short pieces on happiness, well-being, and engagement at work — built for…
Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment
Robert Wright · 2017 · read Oct 2023Robert Wright's argument — built from evolutionary psychology and his own retreat practice — that Buddhist claims about the self…
The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness
Morgan Housel · 2020 · read Aug 2023Morgan Housel's collection of 20 short essays arguing that financial outcomes are mostly behavior, not intelligence — and that…
The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward
Daniel H. Pink · 2022 · read May 2023Daniel Pink's argument — built from a 16,000-person regret survey — that the cultural injunction to live "no regrets" is bad…
How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics
Michael Pollan · 2018 · read May 2023Michael Pollan's mainstream-respectable tour of the psychedelic research renaissance — its history, science, therapeutic…
Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge
Terence McKenna · 1992 · read Apr 2023Terence McKenna's argument that psychoactive plants — particularly psilocybin mushrooms — played a central role in human…
Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving
Pete Walker · 2013 · read Apr 2023Therapist Pete Walker's foundational text distinguishing complex (chronic, developmental, relational) PTSD from single-incident…
Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness
Steve Magness · 2022 · read Mar 2023Performance coach Steve Magness's argument that the dominant "embrace the suck" model of toughness — drill-sergeant,…
Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free
Linda Kay Klein · 2018 · read Feb 2023Klein's hybrid memoir-and-journalism on evangelical "purity culture" of the 1990s and 2000s — True Love Waits, purity rings,…
Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again
Johann Hari · 2022 · read Feb 2023Hari's argument — built from interviews with attention researchers worldwide — that the collapse of attention isn't individual…
How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self
Nicole LePera · 2021 · read Feb 2023"The Holistic Psychologist" LePera's synthesis of trauma theory, conditioning, inner-child work, and nervous system regulation…
How Clients Buy: A Practical Guide to Business Development for Consulting and Professional Services
Tom McMakin · 2018 · read Jan 2023McMakin and Fletcher's research-based framework for what actually drives consulting and professional-services buyers — built from…
What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing
Bruce D. Perry · 2021 · read Jan 2023A conversational book between child psychiatrist and trauma researcher Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey, organized around the title…
Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life
Nir Eyal · 2019 · read Jan 2023Eyal's argument — interesting given he also wrote Hooked, the playbook for building habit-forming products — that distraction is…
A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science & Spirituality
Ken Wilber · 1996 · read Oct 2022Ken Wilber's compact 2000 introduction to his "integral theory" — a meta-framework that attempts to integrate scientific,…
The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality
Chris C. Mooney · 2007 · read May 2022Science journalist Chris Mooney's 2012 argument that the cognitive-and-personality literature shows measurable differences…
Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience
Brené Brown · 2021 · read May 2022Brené Brown's 2021 systematic mapping of 87 emotions — drawing on years of her research lab's qualitative coding work — organized…
The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process: Transcend Your Toughest Times
David Berceli · 2008 · read Apr 2022David Berceli's foundational book on TRE (Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises) — a somatic practice using deliberate muscle…
Yoga and the Quest for the True Self
Stephen Cope · 1999 · read Mar 2022Psychotherapist and Kripalu Institute scholar-in-residence Stephen Cope's introduction to yoga's psychological dimensions —…
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
Bessel van der Kolk · 2014 · read Feb 2022A foundational synthesis of trauma research arguing that traumatic experience is stored physiologically — not just narratively —…
The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever
Michael Bungay Stanier · 2016 · read May 2021A compact playbook arguing that managers default to advice-giving when they should be asking, organized around seven specific…
Liminal Thinking
Dave Gray · 2016 · read Mar 2021Dave Gray's compact framework book on "liminal thinking" — the practice of recognizing that beliefs are constructions built on…
How to Train Your Mind: Exploring the Productivity Benefits of Meditation
Chris Bailey · 2021 · read Mar 2021Productivity writer Chris Bailey's short Audible-original treatment of meditation as a productivity practice — focused on the…
The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love – Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits
Judson Brewer · 2017 · read Jan 2021An addiction psychiatrist's argument that all habits — from smoking to scrolling to romantic obsession — run on the same…
Think Like a Monk: Train Your Mind for Peace and Purpose Every Day
Jay Shetty · 2020 · read Jan 2021Former monk Jay Shetty's translation of three years of ashram training into a Western self-help framework organized around…
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
Brené Brown · 2012 · read Dec 2020Brown's flagship synthesis of her shame and vulnerability research, arguing that vulnerability is not weakness but the…
Braving the Wilderness
Brené Brown · 2017 · read Dec 2020Brown's 2017 book on belonging in polarized times — drawing partly on her own experience of being targeted by both political left…
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari · 2011 · read Nov 2020Harari's sweeping single-volume history of Homo sapiens from cognitive revolution to the present, structured around three…
The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings of Authenticity, Connections and Courage
Brené Brown · 2013 · read Nov 2020Brown's earlier audio-program-and-book treatment of her vulnerability and shame research — predating Daring Greatly as a…
Dare to Lead
Brené Brown · 2018 · read Nov 2020Brené Brown's 2018 application of her vulnerability and shame research to organizational leadership — built around interviews…
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed
Lori Gottlieb · 2019 · read Sep 2020A working psychotherapist's memoir that interleaves her own crisis (a sudden breakup) and her time on her own therapist's couch…
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
Charles Duhigg · 2012 · read Jun 2020Charles Duhigg's 2012 popular-science synthesis of habit research — built around the "habit loop" framework (cue → routine →…
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
James Clear · 2018 · read Jun 2020A practical synthesis of behavioral science into a four-step model for designing habits, organized around the claim that small…
How to Win Friends & Influence People
Dale Carnegie · 1936 · read Nov 2019Dale Carnegie's 1936 self-help classic — practical principles for improving relationships, persuading others, and leading without…
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
Miguel Ruiz · 1997 · read Nov 2019A short distillation of Toltec teaching organized around four commitments meant to reduce self-inflicted suffering.
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts
Gary Chapman · 1990 · read Oct 2019A pastoral counselor's framework arguing that people give and receive love in five distinct "languages" — and that most…