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The Must-Read Brain Books of 2019, Part 1

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The must-read brain books of 2019 featured addiction, perception, evolution, sleep, tribalism, artificial intelligence, and the power of emotional communication. The nine books on this list all reveal important, timely insights about who we are, what we do, and why we do it.

This is part one of a two-part list; the second installment is here.

Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction

By Judith Grisel (Doubleday)

Starting off this year’s must-read list is a little book that delivers a powerful message about the insidiousness of addiction. Its author, Judith Grisel, is a recovered addict turned neuroscientist who blends equal parts personal experience and science into a readable tour of how addictive substances change the brain. When an author knows the material from the standpoint of experience first and academic knowledge second, the result can be especially strong, and that’s the case here. Grisel conveys with persuasive clarity that every addiction is a dance of complicity between our poisons of choice and our brains. Our brains are adaptive marvels, not passive receptors, and paradoxically addiction happens within the adaptive wiring that we can’t function without. She concludes with optimism about science-based ways out of addiction, making this both an instructive and ultimately uplifting read.

The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes

By Donald Hoffman (Norton)

Reality, what a concept! I offer this next book with a casual warning – its aim is to flip your thinking about the nature of perception and reality, and while many will enjoy that sensation, some will find it uncomfortable. In other words, it’s the red pill. Hoffman argues that our senses evolved to tell us a “truth” that helps us navigate the world, survive, and pass along our genes. But that ongoing experience, however much it may seem our “objective reality,” is not. In fact, our senses aren’t equipped to grasp objective reality, but rather perceptions of symbols—icons of the real—that we can more easily comprehend and manage. We live within useful illusions. Once you understand this, the ways in which our senses are constantly manipulated and misled become clearer. The world of perception is rife with trip-ups, and reading this book may provide you with improved glasses for seeing through it.

The Human Swarm: How Our Societies Arise, Thrive, And Fall

By Mark W. Moffett (Basic Books)

In the epic achievement category, Mark Moffett’s fourth book is among the most substantial of the year. We take for granted our species’ ability to interact, usually with order and a sense of how to at least tolerate if not peacefully coexist with others, and often collaborate to create things that improve our collective lives. None of this happened by accident or quickly, as the author explains through an interdisciplinary trek across phases of human development, from hunter-gatherer societies to villages and cities, to the conquering technocracies of our modern world. Among many topics, Moffett deconstructs the role of brain size and “social intelligence” in the mix, within the context of how other species with comparatively smaller and less complex brains manage to pull off remarkable order and productivity. This book is written in the vein of books by E.O. Wilson (Moffett’s mentor) and stands alongside other recent epics like Robert Sapolsky’s “Behave”, which made this annual list in 2017. If you have an appetite for longer reads that pay off, this one is highly recommended.

Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind

By Susan Schneider (Princeton University Press)

Every year I like to find a book for this list that’s relatively short but packed with material that enlightens new ways of thinking about a hot topic. This year the category award goes to Susan Schneider’s 164-page primer on artificial intelligence – what it can and can’t do, its relationship with the human mind, and what could be coming next. Schneider is an AI maven who led a two-year NASA project exploring super-intelligent AI and has written extensively on the subject. In this book, she asks whether humans, using what she calls “mind design,” can create a truly conscious AI, and more importantly how is this even possible when we don’t yet understand our own consciousness? This is a philosophical tour with real-world implications and it’ll appeal most to readers who enjoy playing out scenarios (like Can your mind merge with an AI? and Can AI provide an afterlife for the brain?). One of the benefits of learning about AI is better understanding the human mind, and this book—while challenging—offers an accessible, enjoyable intro for both.

Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive

By Marc Brackett (Celadon Books)

Rounding out the first part of this list is a book that takes the category for breaking through the artificial barrier between thought and emotion. Marc Brackett is the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and originator of the RULER approach to teaching emotional intelligence. This book is his science-based exploration of emotion that I’d argue can help just about anyone better understand their own and others’ emotions. While shelves of books have covered emotional intelligence, what captivated me about this one is the author’s thoroughness in explaining how emotions convey information – it’s like a Rosetta’s Stone for deciphering the complexities of emotional communication. Beckett’s experience teaching kids methods of understanding and managing their emotions really hit home with me as a parent; read this book and you’ll better understand why our failure to give our kids tools for understanding their emotions is setting them up for failure and damaging our communities from the inside out. In short, this is a book for all of us.       

Part two of this list is here.   

You may also like: The Must-Read Brain Books of 2018

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