General Comments: Undergraduate students sometimes find themselves looking for books to read that relate to their classes or interests in psychology. Too frequently, they encounter books (such as self-help or exploitative memoirs) which either misrepresent psychological science or are, frankly, not worth the time spent reading them. Yet, there are not always able to figure out what might be some excellent choices that relate to psychology and ARE worth the time reading. So, here is a partially-annotated listing of books for students to review if they want to read something worth their efforts. I am appreciative of suggestions I have found from other teachers, including recommendation made on the PsychTeacher listserv. Note that I am listing the books below using a modification of APA Style, i.e., I am including the whole first name rather than just the initial. This is done to help you locate the book in case you want to buy it.

• Although Charles G. (Tony) Morris's list is now a little bit out of date, you can also check through the much much longer set of readings at this link.
• This list contains the titles of 56 books as of 8/28/07.
• Most books below are owned by Le Moyne's Falcone Library. To signal those books that the Library does own, I have used the following icon:  

PsycBOOKS. Le Moyne College's Falcone Library maintains a subscription to PsycBOOKS, an online collection of over 1300 books published by the American Psychological Association (APA) and mostly directed toward graduate students and professional psychologists. Many of these books (850+ are actually older titles which are important for historians of psychology.) However, every year, the APA adds about 50-60 titles to PsycBOOKS from their more recent publications. A student can access the individual books in this collection by using a computer on campus and going through SIMON, the library's online catalog. If you cannot find any book in the list below (or in Tony Morris's list cited above), you may wish to browse through the PsycBOOKS collection to see if something there gets your attention. Each book is broken down into a set of pdf files and you can download these to your own computer. You would have to read the book on your computer, something a lot of people prefer not to do. But, it is still a possibility. Please send me an e-mail message or talk to me in class if you decide to choose one of these books.

• To browse the list of books in PsycBOOKS via SIMON in reverse date of publication (that is, the most recent books are listed first), click on this link.
• To browse the list of books in PsycBOOKS via SIMON more generally, click on this link.
  

General

• Blackmore, Susan. (2005). Consciousness: A very short introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. 


• Csikszentmyhalyi, Mihalyi. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. NY: HarperCollins. "The psychology of happiness and enjoyment as obtained through "optimal experiences" or "flow states" in which deep enjoyment is experienced through focused concentration. Includes suggestions for controlling and creating flow states as well as lots of examples and case studies." (review by Tony Morris) 
  

• Csikszentmyhalyi, Mihalyi. (1993). Talented teenagers: The roots of success and failure. New York: Cambridge University Press. 

• Gardner, Howard (2006). Multiple intelligences: New horizons. New York: Perseus. (This is the updated version of the author's groundbreaking 1993 book on the different types of intelligence human beings display. Central to educational theory. I'd prefer you get this edition, but you can use the older one, too.)

• Gardner, Howard (1994). Creating minds: An anatomy of creativity seen through the lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi. New York: Basic Books.

• Gardner, Howard (2007). Five minds for the future. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. [Table of contents]
  

• Gilbert, Daniel T. (2006). Stumbling on happiness. New York: Knopf. [Book site] [Blog commentary] (Daniel Gilbert, the excellent Harvard social psychologist, tells his readers what psychological research reveals 00020000072E000021A1�728,about the human imagination, its errors and its predictive mistakes about the future. And, he do so in a very very funny book.)

• Groopman, Jerome. (2007). How doctors think. Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin. [Publisher's description of book]
   
  
• Hauser, Stuart T, Allen, Joseph P, and Golden, E. (2006). Out of the woods: Tales of resilient teens. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. How do any of us grow up emotionally healthy? That's the central question asked by child-guidance specialist Hauser and others as they studied the adaptive capabilities of a select group of teenage residents of High Valley, a residential psychiatric facility. A succession of interviews conducted with four adolescents, all of whom were under the age of 15 when they entered High Valley, follows a lengthy introduction that describes the research methodology. Undertaken during the course of a dozen years, the interviews clearly reveal the psychological obstacles and challenges the kids faced and overcame. Unlike most studies of high-risk youth, this one, written largely in lay terms, focuses on the positive, and although the authors certainly never claim to have all the answers, they do provide some useful insight that can guide educators and others dedicated to keeping dysfunctional young people "out of the woods." Stephanie Zvirin (Booklist review)

• Norman, D. (1988). The psychology of everyday things. New York: Basic Books.

• Pinker,  Steven (1994). The language instinct. Morrow (1994).
   
  
• Sapolsky, R. (2004) Why zebras don't get ulcers (3rd ed.). New York: Henry Holt. (Focuses on stress, depression, and the management of stress).

• Seligman, Martin E. P. (1991) Learned optimism. New York: Knopf.

• Seligman, Martin E. P. (2004). Authentic happiness: Using the new positive psychology to realize your potential for lasting fulfillment. New York: Free Press. 

• Shepard, Roger (1990). Mind sights: Original visual illusions, ambiguities, and other anomalies (with a commentary on the play of mind in perception and art). W. H. Freeman & Co.

• Stein, Michael (2007). The lonely patient: How we experience illness. New York: William Morrow. Beautifully written, this is a look into the hearts and minds of people suffering serious illness: into the terrors that they often don't express directly. Stein centers his investigation on his brother-in-law Richard, diagnosed with a rare sinus cancer at the age of 50. According to Stein, a professor at the Brown University School of Medicine and a novelist (The Lynching Tree), such patients pass through four emotional stages—betrayal, terror, loneliness and loss—which he illustrates with riveting case studies. One patient had a mysterious bump on his head; because of his fear of anesthesia, he decided to forgo a necessary operation. Stein's most expressive prose evokes the isolated world of the patient, who is locked into a limited existence, confined in a hospital room or at home, exemplified at its most extreme by a quadriplegic who feels completely shut in to "a strange indoor island world." Stein says he now understands the importance of taking the hand of a fearful patient, who need not display courage in front of physicians. This is a moving and eloquent testimony from a caring practitioner. (Publisher's Weekly) 

• Tannen, Deborah. (1991). You just don't understand: Women and men in conversation. New York: Ballentine. (The differences between men and women in how they use language and communicate by the wrold-famous Georgetown University linguistics scholar.)

• Tavris, C. (1983). Anger: The misunderstood emotion. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Biological Psychology & Neuroscience; Brain & Behavior

• Brizendine, Louann. (2006). The female brain New York: Morgan Road Books. The author is a neuropsychiatrist at UCSF. According to Publisher's Weekly, "Brizendine provides a fascinating look at the life cycle of the female brain from birth ("baby girls will connect emotionally in ways that baby boys don't") to birthing ("Motherhood changes you because it literally alters a woman's brain-structurally, functionally, and in many ways, irreversibly") to menopause (when "the female brain is nowhere near ready to retire") and beyond."

• Calvin, William H. (2004). A brief history of the mind: From apes to intellect and beyond. New York: Oxford University Press. ""What is it like, to be a chimpanzee?" asks Calvin, a neurobiologist at the University of Washington, in the first chapter of this fascinating history of the mind. While humans and other primates share many cognitive abilities, an accumulation of qualitative differences in perception, learning and time sense add up to an unbridgeable gap, he says. Tracing human evolution from the first upright hominid through tool making and on to structured thought and hypotheses about the future, Calvin (How Brains Think; A Brain for All Seasons) offers readers a concise, absorbing path to follow. Trying to imagine the thoughts and lives of early humans is not much different than trying to know what it's like to be a chimpanzee, as it turns out. Eventually, Calvin reveals how our evolving brains might have developed such bizarre abstractions as nested information, metaphors and ethics, thus paving the way for consciousness as we know it. He postulates the "mind's Big Bang" as tied to the development of language, offering as support the nativist mind theories of Steven Pinker and Noam Chomsky. Presented with a pleasing blend of philosophy, neuroscience and anthropology, Calvin's ideas are accessible for anyone interested in a scientific look at how our brains make us different from chimpanzees. He adds a cautionary note, too: as human brains get smarter-and as our guts stay primitive and our technology skyrockets-we must get better about "our long-term responsibilities to keep things going."  (Publishers Weekly review)

• Calvin, William H., & Ojeman, George A. (1994) Conversations With Neil's brain: The neural nature of thought and language. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. "Neurophysiologist Calvin and neurosurgeon Ojemann succeed admirably in describing the anatomy and physiology of the brain-undoubtedly the most complex organ in the human body-in very understandable terms. Using the ploy of a dialog with a brain surgery candidate named Neil, the authors answer many puzzling questions concerning the brain's functions. Neil, who suffers from epileptic seizures as a result of brain damage sustained in an auto accident, is eager to have the damaged cells removed. During the course of extensive conversations, Neil learns about memory, moods, motor functions, language, thought patterns, and visual comprehension. Line drawings enhance the explanations. This fascinating book is recommended for consumer health collections." (Library Journal review)

• Carter, Rita. (1998). Mapping the mind. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.  "Carter, a distinguished English medical journalist, has written a handsome and very accessible book designed to introduce laypeople to contemporary neurochemistry, neurobiology and brain research. Carter shows how this research has traced emotions, impressions, thoughts and behaviors--from tasting a sprig of thyme to solving a math problem to killing an intruder--to particular parts of the brain. Descriptions of normal brain function are interspersed with details about the research and about extraordinary, illuminating cases: of the woman to whom the name "Richard" tasted like chocolate, of the man who tried to have sex with a sidewalk. Readers learn that sense-data from the eyes and ears go first to the thalamus; that falling in love may be caused by a single chemical called oxytocin; and that one thinker, Itzhak Fried, has hypothesized "syndrome E," a neurobiological disorder, in young men who carry out genocides. Mixing established knowledge with new speculations, Carter takes care to tell readers which is which. She strews her text with bright diagrams and pictures, and avoids specialized or technical language." (Publishers Weekly review). Note that two other books with the same title in the LMC library are by different authors.

• Damasio, Antonio R. (1994). Descartes' error. New York: Putnam.  "In an important, gracefully written exploration of the neurochemical basis of mind, neurologist Damasio rejects the Cartesian notion of the human mind as a thinking organ more or less separate from bodily processes. Emotions and feelings, he argues, are essential to reasoning and decision-making. The human brain, he further contends, has a specialized region in the frontal lobes for making personal and social decisions, and this region works in concert with deeper brain centers that store emotional memories. To support this controversial claim, Damasio draws on his work with brain-injured patients at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, and also cites the case of Phineas Gage, a Vermont railway foreman who lost his ethical faculties after an explosion in 1848 drove a metal rod through his skull. Damasio's exciting investigation challenges the fashionable metaphor of the mind as a software program." (Publisher's Weekly review)  
  

• Damasio, Antonio R. (1999). The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making of consciousness. New York: Harcourt Brace. 
  
• Damasio, Antonio R. (2003). Looking for Spinoza: Joy, sorrow, and the feeling brain. New York: Harcourt Brace.
   
  
• LeDoux, Joseph (1996). The emotional brain: The mysterious underpinnings of emotional life. New York: Simon & Schuster.
   
  
• LeDoux, Joseph (2002). Synaptic self: How our brains become who we are. New York: Viking. 
  

• O'Shea, Michael (2005). The brain: A very short introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.

• Ramachandran, V. S., & Blakeslee, S. (1998). Phantoms in the brain: Probing mysteries of the human mind. New York: William Morrow.

• Ramachandran, V. S., (2004). A brief tour of human consciousness: From impostor poodles to purple numbers. New York: Pi Press.

• Sacks,  Oliver. (1985). The man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical tales. Summit Books. (One of the most famous collections of essays by a neurologist who describes people with remarkable neurological problems. Fascinating.)

• Sacks, Oliver. (1989). Seeing voices: A journey into the world of the deaf. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. (Its title tells you its story.)

• Sacks, Oliver. (1995). An anthropologist on Mars. New York: Knopf. (Sacks tells the life stories of seven more patients with unusual neurological conditions and how they cope with their lives, e.g., Tourette's syndrome, autism, colorblindness, etc.) 

• Sacks, Oliver. (1997). The island of the colorblind. New York: Knopf. (Sacks goes to the Pacific and its islands where he finds an isolated group of people who are born totally colorblind and, on Guam, a century-long epidemic of paralysis. In this book he talks about his experiences as a neurologist among these island peoples.) 

Clinical & Abormal Psychology

• Barber, Charles (2008). Comfortably numb: How psychiatry is medicating a nation. New York: Pantheon Books.

• Jamison, Kay Redfield (1993). Touched with fire: Manic-depressive illness and the artistic temperament. New York: Maxwell Macmillan International. (The relationship between depression, mania, and the creative works of artists and writers.)

• Jamison, Kay Redfield (2000). Night falls fast: Understanding suicide. New York: Vintage Books.
  

• Lane, Christopher (2007). Shyness: How normal behavior becomes a sickness. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

• Horwitz, Allan V., & Wakefield, Jerome C. (2007). The loss of sadness: How psychiatry transformed normal sorrow into depressive disorder. New York: Oxford University Press.

• Schreibman, (2007). The science and fiction of autism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [paperback ed.] "For anyone close to an autistic person who wants to learn about the problem, this is almost certainly the best available manual...Schreibman describes pretty much every current approach to autism, and examines how well supported by evidence each proposed theory is, and how well each therapy works. There is no better straightforward source of answers than this book" (review by Prof. Ian Hacking in the London Review of Books).

Forensic Psychology & Criminal Behavior

• Butterfield,  Fox. (1995). All God's children: The Bosket family and the American tradition of violence. New York: Knopf. "Willie Bosket was charming, magnetic, and brilliant. He was also the most cold-blooded criminal the New York State penal system had ever seen. By the time he was in his teens, he had committed over two hundred armed robberies and twenty-five stabbings. Fox Butterfield examines the heritage of violence that followed Bosket's family from their days in slavery in South Carolina to the present." (Amazon.com review)

• Hare, Robert D. (1999). Without conscience: The disturbing world of the psychopaths among us. New York: Guilford Press. (A well-received study of psychopaths and criminal behavior in contemporary American life.) 

History of Psychology,  Psychology, and the Behavioral Sciences; Biographies

• Blass, Thomas. (2004). The man who shocked the world: The life and legacy of Stanley Milgram. New York: Basic Books. (This biography tells the story of Stanley Milgram who conducted some of the most famous experiments in psychology's history: he demonstrated how ordinary people could be induced to harm other people by their need to conform to the orders of others' in authority). 

• Blum, Deborah. (2002). Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the science of affection. New York: Perseus. "In this surprisingly compelling book, Blum (The Monkey Wars) reveals that many of the child-rearing truths we now take for granted infants need parental attention; physical contact is related to emotional growth and cognitive development were shunned by the psychological community of the 1950s. As Blum shows, Freudian and behavioral psychologists argued for decades that babies were drawn to their mothers only as a source of milk, motivated by the instinctual drive for sustenance, and that children could be harmed by too much affection. Harry Harlow's experiments, Blum finds in this deeply sympathetic investigation of his life and work, changed all this, conclusively demonstrating that infant monkeys bond emotionally with a specific "mother" a dummy figure made of cloth even if it is not a source of food. The experiments also revealed, astonishingly enough, that puzzle-solving monkeys who were not rewarded with food actually performed better than those who were rewarded, leading him to conclude that baby primates and by extension, baby children are motivated by a range of emotions, including curiosity, affection and wonder. Born Harry Israel, Harlow changed his name because 1930s anti-Semitism prevented him from getting a research position (though he wasn't Jewish). His first marriage ended because his wife, who had given up her own promising scientific career, felt he was spending too much time time at the lab and not enough at home with the kids. Monkey Wars fans who have been waiting for a follow-up will find this book irresistible" (Publisher's Weekly review)

• Gould, Stephen Jay (1996). The mismeasure of man. W. W. Norton & Co. NOTE: This is the revised version of his original 1981 book which is the only edition the LMC Falcone library has. Get this 1996 edition. "How smart are you? If that question doesn't spark a dozen more questions in your mind (like "What do you mean by 'smart,'" "How do I measure it," and "Who's asking?"), then The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould's masterful demolition of the IQ industry, should be required reading. Gould's brilliant, funny, engaging prose dissects the motivations behind those who would judge intelligence, and hence worth, by cranial size, convolutions, or score on extremely narrow tests. How did scientists decide that intelligence was unipolar and quantifiable, and why did the standard keep changing over time? Gould's answer is clear and simple: power maintains itself. European men of the 19th century, even before Darwin, saw themselves as the pinnacle of creation and sought to prove this assertion through hard measurement. When one measure was found to place members of some "inferior" group such as women or Southeast Asians over the supposedly rightful champions, it would be discarded and replaced with a new, more comfortable measure. The 20th-century obsession with numbers led to the institutionalization of IQ testing and subsequent assignment to work (and rewards) commensurate with the score, shown by Gould to be not simply misguided--for surely intelligence is multifactorial--but also regressive, creating a feedback loop rewarding the rich and powerful. The revised edition includes a scathing critique of Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve, taking them to task for rehashing old arguments to exploit a new political wave of uncaring and belt tightening. It might not make you any smarter, but The Mismeasure of Man will certainly make you think." (Amazon.com review)

• Hunt, Morton (1993). The story of psychology. New York: Doubleday. (A very long, but readable history of psychology.) 

• Valenstein, Elliot S. (1986). Great and desperate cures: The rise and decline of psychosurgery and other radical treatments for mental illness. New York: Basic Books. "This is a lively, fascinating, and yet scholarly account of the history of the use of psychosurgery in treating men tal disorders. Focused in particular on the extraordinary Walter Freeman, with whom psychosurgery is most as sociated, the book explores the rise in use of lobotomies and similar procedures through the 1950s and the de cline ever since (apart from a brief flurry in the 1970s). Valenstein, a research psychologist ..., writes in a lucid, even-handed way even while conclud ing with a strong plea for restraint in the use of untested medical interventions. The book makes compelling reading for both laypeople and scholars." (Library Journal review)

• Whitaker, Robert. (2002). Mad in America: Bad science, bad medicine, and the enduring mistreatment of the mentally ill. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publications. (Based on exhaustive research culled from old patient medical records, historical accounts, and government documents, this haunting book raises important questions about our obligations to the mad, what it means to be "insane." and what we value most about the human mind)

Memory Processes & Learning

• Hilts, Philip J. (1996). Memory's ghost: The nature of memory and the strange tale of Mr. M. Touchstone Books.

• Schacter, Daniel. (2001). The seven sins of memory: How the mind forgets and remembers. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Personal Memoirs & Autobiographies

• Delany, S., Delany, A. E., & Hearth, A. H. (1997). Having our say: The Delany sisters' first 100 years. New York: Kodansha International. "In this remarkable and charming oral history, two lively and perspicacious sisters, aged 101 and 103, reflect on their rich family life and their careers as pioneering African American professionals. Brief chapters capture Sadie's warm voice ("Now, I was a 'mama's child' ") and Bessie's fiestiness ("I'm alive out of sheer determination, honey!"). The unmarried sisters, who live together, tell of growing up on the campus of a black college in Raleigh, N.C., where their father was an Episcopal priest, and of being too independent for the men who courted them. With parental influence far stronger than that of Jim Crow, they joined professions--Sadie teaching domestic science, Bessie practicing dentistry. In 1920s Harlem they mixed with black activists and later were among the first to integrate the New York City suburb of Mount Vernon. While their account of the last 40 years is sketchy, their observations about everything from black identity to their yoga exercises make them worthwhile company. Freelancer Hearth, who wrote an initial story on the sisters in the New York Times in 1991, has deftly shaped and contextualized their reflections." (Publishers Weekly review)

• Neugeboren, Jay. (1998). Imagining Robert: My brother, madness, and survival: A memoir. New York: Henry Holt. "Imagining Robert is an account of Robert Neugeboren's 30-year history of mental illness. In this moving memoir, his brother Jay describes the tragedy of psychosis and illustrates the redemptive power of writing. The author imagines his brother as two people--one hospitalized, the other communicative and lucid--and crafts a story of his brother's thoughts by weaving together Robert's exquisitely written letters about this unfolding family tragedy. The instability of the author's own children and his manipulative mother's affliction with Alzheimer's disease multiply the pressure he feels, threatening his own mental health. His careful words seem an attempt to organize the confusion around him. The imagined friendship with the brother he lovingly cares for serves as an important source of self-examination. Neugeboren's prose restores his brother's dignity by refusing to let the details of how Robert has suffered in psychiatric institutions go unrecorded." (Amazon.com book description)

• Vonnegut, Mark. (2002). Eden express: A memoir of insanity. New York: Seven Stories Press. Work originally published 1975. "Most diseases can be separated from one’s self ... schizophrenia is something we are." So begins Mark Vonnegut’s depiction of his descent into, and eventual emergence from, mental illness. As a recent college graduate, self-avowed hippie, and son of a counterculture hero, Vonnegut begins to experience increasingly delusional thinking, suicidal thoughts, and physical incapacity. In February 1971 he is committed to a psychiatric hospital. The Eden Express, an ALA Notable Book first published over 25 years ago, is his honest, thoughtful, and moving account of the illness of schizophrenia. This edition features a new foreword by Kurt Vonnegut and a new preface by the author." (Amazon.com book description)

Social Psychology

• Aronson, Elliot. (2008). The social animal (10th ed.). New York: W. H. Freeman & Co. (Editions before this one are too old).

• Brader, Ted. (2006). Campaigning for hearts and minds: How emotional appeals in political ads work. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Well received book explaining how politicians try to influence us. Very good introduction to political and advertising psychology.]

• Cialdini, Robert B. (1993). Influence: The psychology of persuasion. New York: Morrow. (Examines the psychological roots of how we affect others and influence them to think or do what we want them to). 

• Pratkanis, Anthony R., & Aronson, E. (1992). Age of propaganda: The everyday use and abuse of persuasion. New York: W. H. Freeman. (A survey of many of the ways that governments, advertisements, and other forces in our world employ propaganda, that is, information which is designed to get us to think in a particular way or to do something or to buy a product, etc.) 

• Pyszczynski, Tom, Solomon, Sheldon, & Greenberg, Jeff. (2003). In the wake of 9/11: The psychology of terror. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.  "This book explores the emotions of despair, fear, and anger that arose after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the autumn of 2001. The authors analyze reactions to the attacks through the lens of Terror Management Theory, an existential psychological model that explains why humans react the way they do to the threat of death and how this reaction influences their post-threat cognition and emotion. " (PsycINFO Database description) Available both on LMC bookshelf and via PsycBOOKS

• Rousell, Michael A. (2007). Sudden influence: How spontaneous events shape our lives. Westport, CT: Praeger. "Some times a simple statement or event can change a life. Rousell shows how and when our words and actions produce their strongest influence. Based on sound research and many years of practical experience, Rousell teaches us all to recognize and create exceptional opportunities for those whose lives we impact. Sudden Influence teaches us how to use the right words at the right time." - Geoffrey E. Mills Ph.D. Dean and Professor of Education, Southern Oregon University

• Tavris, Carol. (2007). Mistakes were made (but not by me): Why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acts. Orlando, FL: Harcourt.
  

• Zimbardo, Philip G. (2007). The Lucifer effect: Understanding how good people turn evil. New York: Random House. (Stanford University social psychologist, Philip Zimbardo, explains the psychological theory and research which allows us to understand how seemingly "good" people can commit terrible crimes against other people, e.g., the abuses at Abu Ghraib).