Books That Make You Think

You finish the final chapter of a celebrated book, close the cover in silence, and look around your living room feeling as though the furniture, the street outside, and your own internal thoughts have fundamentally shifted under a new light. That profound cognitive disequilibrium is extraordinary. When a truly great book challenges our default assumptions, it does not simply hand us new facts; it permanently alters the intellectual lens through which we interpret reality, human behavior, and our own moral choices. It is not an everyday occurrence. Rather, it represents the rare transformative power of deep philosophical paradigm shifts.

In an era dominated by hyper-condensed digital content, superficial hot takes, and polarizing social algorithms, our collective capacity for deep, sustained analytical thinking is under relentless siege. We consume thousands of fragmented headlines each week yet rarely encounter long-form arguments that dismantle our deeply entrenched cognitive biases or force us to confront uncomfortable existential truths. Settling for superficial reading material leaves our worldview narrow and unchallenged. However, engaging with masterworks across cognitive psychology, evolutionary anthropology, sociology, and philosophy forces the brain out of complacent mental shortcuts. Discovering intellectually demanding literature equips you with the analytical tools to challenge ideological dogmas and build a rigorous, critically examined worldview.

How can reading interdisciplinary and foundational literature expand your cognitive flexibility and sharpen your intellectual critical discernment?

This comprehensive guide details 10 books that make you think, reviewing landmark treatises across cognitive neuroscience, evolutionary history, probability theory, moral psychology, and existential philosophy that permanently transform how you perceive human nature.

Why Is Cognitive Disequilibrium Essential for Intellectual Growth?

Cognitive disequilibrium occurs when an individual encounters new, incontrovertible evidence or philosophical arguments that directly contradict their existing mental schemas. Rather than comfortably assimilating information into familiar categories, the mind is forced to undergo cognitive accommodation—restructuring its fundamental assumptions to make sense of a more complex reality.

Developmental psychologist Jean Piaget established that genuine intellectual maturation requires passing through periods of cognitive disequilibrium. When readers encounter challenging ideas that reveal hidden contradictions in their worldview, the brain experiences uncomfortable cognitive dissonance. However, working through this friction physically strengthens neural connections in the prefrontal cortex, transforming intellectual discomfort into advanced analytical reasoning.

Cognitive psychologist Daniel Kahneman demonstrates that the human brain defaults to System 1 heuristics to conserve metabolic energy. Without books that deliberately provoke deep, effortful System 2 analytical thinking, our opinions become rigid, overconfident, and vulnerable to manipulation. Reading intellectually provocative masterworks acts as a vital cognitive workout, systematically dismantling overconfidence and cultivating authentic intellectual humility.

• Cognitive disequilibrium forces the brain to accommodate complex, challenging evidence rather than relying on comforting mental shortcuts.
• Engaging with dense, counterintuitive arguments strengthens prefrontal neural pathways and refines critical analytical discernment.
• Challenging established cognitive schemas protects against the cognitive traps of confirmation bias and ideological rigidity.
• Developing a habit of reading complex literature fosters lifelong curiosity, nuance, and rigorous intellectual humility.

10 Books That Make You Think Deeply About Reality and Human Nature

The following curated selection represents the premier interdisciplinary literature designed to dismantle cognitive complacency, spanning cognitive psychology, deep history, probability theory, evolutionary neuroscience, and transformative existential philosophy.

1. Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman is the definitive masterwork on human cognitive architecture, irrationality, and behavioral decision-making. Kahneman synthesizes decades of landmark collaborative research with Amos Tversky, deconstructing the dual-process model of human thought: System 1 (fast, intuitive, emotional, and automatic) versus System 2 (slow, deliberate, analytical, and effortful).

Kahneman meticulously exposes the pervasive cognitive biases and heuristics that distort human judgment, including the availability heuristic, anchoring effects, hindsight bias, and loss aversion. For readers seeking to understand why smart people make consistently irrational choices, this volume provides an indispensable, transformative masterclass in cognitive bias mechanics.

• Delineates the dual-process cognitive framework governing automatic versus deliberate analytical reasoning.
• Exposes systematic cognitive illusions, heuristics, and the empirical foundations of prospect theory.
• Provides readers with practical tools to recognize when the brain relies on flawed intuitive cognitive shortcuts.

2. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind — Yuval Noah Harari

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by historian Yuval Noah Harari delivers a breathtaking, paradigm-shifting overview of our species’ journey from insignificant African primates to the dominant masters of planet Earth. Harari identifies three major revolutions that shaped human destiny: the Cognitive Revolution, the Agricultural Revolution, and the Scientific Revolution.

Harari’s most profound insight is that Homo sapiens conquered the globe because of our unique ability to create and collectively believe in “inter-subjective myths”—such as money, nations, corporations, and human rights. By demonstrating that our most revered social institutions are social constructs, this volume forces readers to re-examine the foundations of modern human civilization.

• Identifies the Cognitive Revolution and fictional storytelling as the primary engines of human species dominance.
• Examines how collective belief in shared myths enables large-scale flexible social cooperation.
• Critically evaluates the psychological and ecological costs of the agricultural and scientific revolutions.

3. The Denial of Death — Ernest Becker

The Denial of Death by cultural anthropologist and interdisciplinary scholar Ernest Becker is a Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece that explores the central existential paradox of human existence: possessing a god-like, self-conscious imagination while being trapped in a fragile, decaying animal body doomed to die. Becker argues that the terror of our own mortality is the primary psychological driver of human behavior.

To cope with paralyzing existential dread, humans construct “immortality projects”—cultural systems, monuments, political ideologies, and personal legacies designed to ensure symbolic survival beyond physical death. This profound, uncomfortable volume directly inspired Terror Management Theory in social psychology, offering readers an unforgettable analysis of existential human motivation.

• Exposes the fear of mortality as the primary psychological engine behind human cultural creation.
• Introduces the concept of “immortality projects” designed to achieve symbolic personal transcendence.
• Provides a foundational theoretical framework for understanding ideological extremism and existential dread.

4. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Black Swan by mathematical statistician and risk analyst Nassim Nicholas Taleb delivers a fierce, brilliant critique of how humans understand uncertainty, randomness, and extreme events. Taleb defines a “Black Swan” as an event that is an outlier, carries an extreme impact, and is retrospectively rationalized as if it had been predictable all along.

Taleb distinguishes between “Mediocristan” (domains governed by bell-curve normal distributions, like human height) and “Extremistan” (scalable domains governed by power-law dynamics, like financial markets and pandemics). This provocative, heavily cited work dismantles human overconfidence in predictive modeling, empowering readers to build resilience against radical global uncertainty.

• Defines the three characteristics of Black Swan events: rarity, extreme impact, and retrospective predictability illusions.
• Contrasts bell-curve linear statistics with power-law distributions governing complex modern systems.
• Provides philosophical frameworks to minimize vulnerability to negative outliers while capitalizing on positive serendipity.

5. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid — Douglas R. Hofstadter

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by cognitive scientist Douglas R. Hofstadter is an astonishing, Pulitzer Prize-winning intellectual tour de force that explores how self-conscious awareness emerges from inanimate matter. Hofstadter intertwines Kurt Gödel’s mathematical incompleteness theorems, M. C. Escher’s paradoxical visual lithographs, and J. S. Bach’s complex contrapuntal music.

At the heart of the book is the concept of “Strange Loops”—hierarchical systems in which moving upwards or downwards through the levels inevitably brings you back to the starting point. Hofstadter argues that this self-referential recursiveness is the foundational architecture of human consciousness and artificial intelligence, delivering an incomparable celebration of cognitive self-referential systems.

• Interweaves mathematical logic, visual art, and contrapuntal music into an exploration of human consciousness.
• Introduces the concept of “Strange Loops” to explain how self-awareness emerges from recursive neural networks.
• Examines the philosophical foundations of computational theory, linguistics, and artificial cognitive intelligence.

6. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion — Jonathan Haidt

The Righteous Mind by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt investigates the evolutionary origins of human morality, providing a groundbreaking explanation for why intelligent, well-meaning people hold fiercely opposing political and religious views. Haidt establishes the fundamental principle: “Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.”

Haidt introduces Moral Foundations Theory, demonstrating that human moral systems are constructed upon six universal psychological taste receptors: Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, Sanctity/Degradation, and Liberty/Oppression. This essential volume provides readers with an evidence-based roadmap for understanding ideological polarization and cultivating empathetic moral literacy.

• Articulates the social intuitionist model: moral judgments are driven by gut intuition, followed by post-hoc rationalization.
• Delineates the six psychological axes comprising Moral Foundations Theory across diverse cultural populations.
• Explains how morality simultaneously binds social groups together while blinding them to opposing moral viewpoints.

7. The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World — Iain McGilchrist

The Master and His Emissary by British psychiatrist and literary scholar Iain McGilchrist delivers a monumental neurobiological and cultural analysis of the human brain’s divided cerebral hemispheres. Moving far beyond simplistic pop psychology myths, McGilchrist demonstrates that the two hemispheres do not differ in what they do, but in the qualitative way they attend to the world.

The left hemisphere prioritizes narrow, decontextualized, utilitarian focus—manipulating fragments and categorizing parts—while the right hemisphere perceives holistic context, metaphor, relational depth, and living reality. McGilchrist argues that modern Western civilization has become dangerously dominated by the left hemisphere’s mechanistic worldview, delivering a profound warning and call for holistic cognitive balance.

• Re-evaluates hemispheric lateralization through the lens of differential modes of attentional processing.
• Contrasts the left hemisphere’s narrow utilitarianism with the right hemisphere’s holistic relational perception.
• Traces Western cultural and philosophical history through the shifting balance of cerebral hemispheric dominance.

8. The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature — Steven Pinker

The Blank Slate by Harvard cognitive psychologist and linguist Steven Pinker takes aim at three pervasive dogmas that dominated twentieth-century social science: the Blank Slate (the belief that the mind has no innate traits), the Noble Savage (the belief that humans are born good and corrupted by society), and the Ghost in the Machine (the belief that our choices are entirely separate from biological biology).

Synthesizing evolutionary biology, behavioral genetics, and cognitive science, Pinker proves that human nature is an evolved biological reality. He dismantles fears that acknowledging innate human nature justifies inequality or fatalism, demonstrating that realistic humanism requires understanding our evolved evolutionary psychology.

• Dismantles three historical dogmas: the Blank Slate, the Noble Savage, and the Ghost in the Machine.
• Synthesizes behavioral genetics and evolutionary biology to prove the existence of innate human nature.
• Demonstrates how acknowledging biological constraints strengthens ethical humanism, justice, and progressive public policy.

9. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies — Jared Diamond

Guns, Germs, and Steel by evolutionary biologist and geographer Jared Diamond is a Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece that addresses one of history’s most consequential questions: Why did Eurasian civilizations conquer, displace, or dominate Native American, African, and Australian populations, rather than the reverse?

Diamond decisively dismantles racist biological explanations, proving that global inequalities arose from environmental and geographical factors—specifically differences in the availability of domesticable wild plant and animal species, continental axes facilitating agricultural diffusion, and early immune resistance to zoonotic pathogens. This volume provides an indispensable masterclass in environmental and geographic determinism.

• Refutes racist biological theories of history through rigorous geographical and ecological analysis.
• Explains how continental orientation and biodiversity dictated the timing of early agricultural development.
• Illuminates the evolutionary interplay between animal domestication, epidemic disease, and geopolitical conquest.

10. Man’s Search for Meaning — Viktor E. Frankl

Man’s Search for Meaning by Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor E. Frankl is a timeless existential classic recounting his survival across Nazi concentration camps and detailing the clinical principles of logotherapy. Frankl argues that the primary human drive is neither pleasure nor power, but the intentional discovery of meaning.

Frankl demonstrates that even under conditions of unimaginable suffering and deprivation, human beings retain the ultimate spiritual freedom: the ability to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances. This short, profound volume serves as a cornerstone of existential psychology, challenging readers to embrace personal responsibility and discover enduring purpose in adversity.

• Articulates the core principles of logotherapy and meaning-centered existential psychotherapy.
• Explores the psychological mechanisms of resilience, psychological endurance, and existential survival.
• Demonstrates that finding purpose enables the human psyche to transcend unavoidable existential suffering.

Dual-Process Theory: How Fast and Slow Thinking Shapes Perception

At the center of contemporary cognitive psychology lies the dual-process architecture of human cognition, a theoretical model popularized by Daniel Kahneman and Keith Stanovich. Understanding this neurological division is essential for recognizing why human beings are simultaneously capable of extraordinary scientific breakthroughs and shocking, irrational cognitive blindness.

System 1 operates automatically, rapidly, and with little or no conscious effort. It governs intuitive pattern recognition, facial expression interpretation, and immediate emotional reactions. While System 1 is remarkably efficient for everyday navigation, it relies heavily on evolutionary heuristics—shortcuts that systematically misjudge statistical probabilities, confuse correlation with causation, and prioritize vivid anecdotes over empirical baseline data. System 2, in contrast, allocates mental energy to demanding analytical operations, complex calculations, formal logic, and deliberate self-regulation.

The fundamental cognitive challenge is that System 2 is metabolically expensive and inherently lazy, routinely endorsing the intuitive conclusions generated by System 1 without verifying their accuracy. Reading books that provoke deep critical thinking forces System 2 to take the reins, cultivating the mental discipline required for rigorous objective reasoning.

• System 1 generates rapid intuitive impressions using ancient, evolutionary heuristic cognitive shortcuts.
• System 2 performs effortful logical operations but frequently suffers from metabolic cognitive fatigue.
• Cognitive illusions occur when System 2 blindly endorses intuitive biases without empirical verification.
• Engaging with complex literature trains cognitive self-monitoring and enhances reflective analytical accuracy.

The Moral Foundations That Divide Human Societies

Why do moral and political disagreements feel so intractable, personal, and emotionally charged? Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt provides a transformative answer through Moral Foundations Theory, proving that moral judgments are not derived from cool, rational deliberation, but from visceral emotional intuitions that our rational minds subsequently defend with post-hoc justifications.

As illustrated in the comparison table above, diverse political and cultural philosophies construct their worldviews on different combinations of these six universal moral axes. Western secular liberals typically rely primarily on the Care, Fairness, and Liberty axes, while social conservatives and traditional cultures utilize all six foundations equally. Understanding this moral matrix allows readers to transcend ideological self-righteousness, transforming bitter political arguments into empathetic sociological understanding.

Terror Management Theory and the Psychology of Mortality

One of the most profound, intellectually startling frameworks in social psychology is Terror Management Theory (TMT), directly developed by researchers Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, and Tom Pyszczynski from the philosophical foundations of Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death. TMT explores how human awareness of inevitable death creates the potential for paralyzing existential terror, and how human culture functions as a protective psychological shield.

Extensive empirical experiments confirm that when individuals are subtly reminded of their own mortality—a manipulation known as “mortality salience”—they cling more aggressively to their cultural worldviews, exhibit greater hostility toward outsiders with differing beliefs, and strive more desperately to boost their self-esteem through symbolic achievement. Cultural traditions, national flags, religious doctrines, and personal status symbols all serve as “immortality shields” that protect the human ego from existential insignificance.

Recognizing the unconscious influence of mortality salience frees individuals from reactive ideological tribalism. When we understand why we crave symbolic immortality, we can choose to live with authentic, courageously examined purpose rather than succumbing to fear-driven cultural defensiveness.

• Mortality salience triggers unconscious psychological defenses that intensify ideological tribalism and outgroup hostility.
• Cultural worldviews and status symbols function as protective buffers against paralyzing existential dread.
• Terror Management Theory explains why ideological disputes are defended with the intensity of a biological survival struggle.
• Confronting mortality consciously cultivates genuine existential clarity, reducing the need for defensive status chasing.

Hemispheric Lateralization: Re-evaluating the Divided Brain

For decades, popular culture completely trivialized cerebral brain lateralization with pop-psychology myths claiming that the left hemisphere is “logical and math-oriented” while the right hemisphere is “creative and emotional.” In The Master and His Emissary, psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist delivers a rigorous, neuroscience-backed re-evaluation of the divided brain, proving that both hemispheres are involved in every cognitive task, but attend to reality in fundamentally distinct ways.

The left hemisphere’s evolutionary role is to provide narrow, targeted focus—enabling an organism to seize prey or manipulate tools. To accomplish this, the left hemisphere represents reality as static, isolated, decontextualized fragments, prioritizing utility and explicit verbal categorization. The right hemisphere, in contrast, maintains broad, vigilant, open attention—perceiving the whole living context, processing implicit emotional tone, understanding metaphor, and appreciating interconnected relational depth.

McGilchrist argues that modern technological culture has become dangerously unbalanced, creating a hyper-bureaucratic, mechanistic world that mirrors the isolated abstractions of the left hemisphere. Restoring psychological and cultural health requires re-integrating the right hemisphere’s capacity for living, contextualized holistic awareness.

1. Both cerebral hemispheres participate in all cognitive tasks but maintain fundamentally distinct attentional orientations toward reality.
2. The left hemisphere deconstructs the world into static, utilitarian fragments, prioritizing explicit mechanistic categorization.
3. The right hemisphere perceives living context, metaphor, nuance, and interconnected relational depth.
4. Cultivating balanced cognitive awareness requires harmonizing analytical left-hemisphere precision with holistic right-hemisphere perspective.

Practical Exercises to Apply Transformative Ideas to Daily Life

Reading intellectually demanding books creates meaningful personal transformation only when abstract philosophical insights are translated into daily cognitive habits. Moving from passive consumption to active intellectual integration requires structured practices that bridge the gap between theoretical comprehension and lived daily behavior. Humanistic psychologist Carl R. Rogers consistently emphasized that authentic personal growth requires integrating intellectual insight into experiential living habits.

To operationalize the core insights from these ten essential masterworks, practice these four evidence-based critical thinking disciplines:

1. Conduct an “Ideological Turing Test” during disagreements by summarizing your opponent’s perspective so accurately that they say, “I couldn’t have stated my position better myself,” cultivating genuine moral perspective-taking.
2. Perform a daily “Heuristic Audit” before major choices, explicitly checking for confirmation bias, anchoring effects, and availability heuristics.
3. Schedule a weekly “Mortality Reflection” for ten minutes to evaluate whether your current daily routines align with your authentic existential values.
4. Practice “Opposing Schema Immersion” by reading high-quality long-form essays from intellectual traditions that directly challenge your deeply held political beliefs.

When Existential Questioning Becomes Overwhelming: Seeking Professional Care

While engaging with deep philosophical and psychological literature is an exceptional catalyst for intellectual growth, confronting profound existential questions—mortality, meaninglessness, cognitive fallibility, and systemic injustice—can occasionally trigger severe existential anxiety or unmask underlying clinical depression. Recognizing when intellectual curiosity transitions into clinical distress is an essential mental health literacy competency.

If reading about existential philosophy or human suffering triggers persistent feelings of hopeless despair, severe panic attacks, emotional detachment, insomnia, or an inability to engage in daily life for more than two consecutive weeks, books alone are insufficient. You should schedule an evaluation with a licensed clinical psychologist or psychiatrist. Specialized modalities such as Existential Psychotherapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) provide safe, supportive environments to explore existential meaning without collapsing into depressive existential paralysis.

Most critically, if you or someone you know is experiencing acute intrusive thoughts of self-harm, suicidal despair, or a crisis where safety cannot be guaranteed, do not rely on literature. In the United States and Canada, immediately call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, free and completely confidential. Seeking professional clinical care during moments of existential crisis is not a sign of weakness; it is the ultimate act of courageous personal self-advocacy.

• Persistent existential dread, clinical anhedonia, and severe cognitive paralysis warrant an evaluation by a licensed mental health professional.
• Existential Psychotherapy and ACT provide structured clinical frameworks for processing existential meaning crises.
• Acute intrusive thoughts of self-harm or suicidal ideation demand immediate emergency contact with dedicated crisis support services.

FAQs about Books That Make You Think

What is the single best book to start with if I want to challenge my thinking?

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman is universally regarded as the premier starting point for anyone seeking to challenge their cognitive assumptions. Kahneman combines decades of Nobel Prize-winning research with accessible real-world demonstrations, showing how our intuitive System 1 thinking consistently misjudges statistical probabilities, falls for cognitive biases, and constructs overconfident narratives. The book is organized into short, modular chapters that allow readers to digest one cognitive heuristic at a time. It permanently alters how you evaluate your own decisions, financial risks, and political arguments.

Can reading dense philosophical and psychological books improve cognitive function?

Yes, engaging with complex, interdisciplinary literature stimulates neuroplasticity and strengthens prefrontal cognitive control networks. When you read arguments that require holding multiple abstract concepts simultaneously, your brain exercises working memory, enhances semantic processing, and builds cognitive reserve. Furthermore, deep narrative reading counteracts the fractured attentional patterns caused by short-form digital media, restoring the capacity for sustained, deep focus. Regular engagement with challenging texts directly enhances analytical problem-solving and critical discernment.

What is the core difference between Sapiens and Guns, Germs, and Steel?

While both books explore the broad trajectory of human history, they focus on different primary causal mechanisms. Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel emphasizes environmental, ecological, and geographical determinism, arguing that differences in continental axes, domesticable plant species, and animal biodiversity dictated why certain civilizations advanced technologically before others. In contrast, Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens focuses on cognitive and cultural evolution, arguing that human dominance was driven by our unique ability to create and collectively believe in shared fictional myths like money, nations, and laws.

Why do books about mortality and human irrationality cause initial discomfort?

Books that explore mortality and cognitive bias trigger initial emotional discomfort because they induce cognitive disequilibrium—challenging the ego’s foundational illusions of immortality, rational control, and moral superiority. When an author reveals that your political opinions are driven by gut intuitions or that your lifestyle is a defense against existential dread, the brain experiences cognitive dissonance. However, working through this discomfort is the exact mechanism through which intellectual maturation and authentic self-awareness develop.

How does Moral Foundations Theory help reduce political anger?

Moral Foundations Theory, developed by Dr. Jonathan Haidt, reduces political anger by reframing ideological opponents not as evil or stupid, but as people operating on different psychological moral matrices. Haidt demonstrates that political disputes arise because different groups prioritize different combinations of universal moral foundations (such as Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity). Recognizing that an opponent’s stance is rooted in an evolved moral instinct rather than malicious intent fosters empathy and enables more constructive dialogue.

How do I know if my existential questioning requires therapy?

Existential questioning requires therapy when intellectual curiosity shifts into debilitating emotional distress that interferes with daily functioning, sleep, work, or relationships for more than two weeks. Warning signs include pervasive hopelessness, panic attacks, severe emotional numbness, or feeling that life is so meaningless that continuing is pointless. If existential reflection leads to depression, severe anxiety, or thoughts of self-harm, a licensed therapist specializing in Existential Psychotherapy or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy can provide vital clinical support.

Bibliography

• Becker, E. (1973). The Denial of Death. Free Press.
• Diamond, J. (1997). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W. W. Norton & Company.
• Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press.
• Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Pantheon Books.
• Harari, Y. N. (2014). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Harvill Secker.
• Hofstadter, D. R. (1979). Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Basic Books.
• Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• McGilchrist, I. (2009). The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. Yale University Press.
• Pinker, S. (2002). The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. Viking.
• Rogers, C. R. (1961). On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy. Houghton Mifflin.
• Taleb, N. N. (2007). The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Random House.