The most recommended neuroscience books

Let’s face it, this book is heavy. It is a university textbook, so it requires hard work. But it is worth it.

This is a magical mystery tour into the bizarre wonders of our own brains: why spend a fortune exploring the world when you can explore your own brain sitting in a chair, for free?

By the end of it, I was left ruminating over how we really see and think and over reality itself. The book is your entry ticket to a world of wonder: your own brain.

The book is a massive antidote to all the pop psychology books out there, and will enable you to be a far more critical and insightful reader of such books.

I found myself wanting to stand up and applaud while reading this book. The description of what a kid really does on a typical day at school is alone worth the purchase (and will make you laugh... and then heave a deep sigh.) But more importantly, these two teachers outline the pitfalls our digitally-driven world has created in terms of education, deep thinking, social responsibility, and ability to problem solve. As someone who has done a lot of research into the “screens in school” topic, I found this book to be thorough and clear, and written with enough humor to make a tough topic palatable. 

I am recommending this book, The Art of Impossible, because it creates a deep thinking of “what do I stand for? Where am I going? And How do I get there?” It has science, spirituality, and self-awareness in one place. 

I loved this book so much I went to the store and bought every copy and gave it out to friends and family. When I would read it I felt empowered to think deeply and look at my life with new insight. I was reading this book during the start of covid. It helped me stay focused. Stay engaged in my life path and learn tools on how to stay focused.

If you’re looking for an easy-to-understand and entertaining introduction to the basics of how your brain works, The Brain is a great choice.

The author, David Eagleman, is an accomplished neuroscientist who has both a deep understanding of brain function and a talent for explaining those functions in a clear and engaging style.

The book also explores how neuroscience might influence some profound philosophical questions about free will, consciousness, and more—so you’ll get a dose of deep thinking along with some fundamental neuroscience knowledge.

Just because most teachers love to read, their students may not feel the same way. 

Teachers struggle with getting students to read and the rise in screen time and social media seems to make the challenge even tougher. Furthermore, is reading on a screen the same as reading on paper?

This book addresses reading on screens head on and provides a rich history of reading, and lays the groundwork for ways to get students to be more effective readers. I loved the facts relating to what catches student eyeballs.

I loved this book because it offers a refreshing view of what neuroscience can and should be. Unlike different, highly credentialed neuroscientists who routinely offer vastly incompatible views of consciousness and who we ultimately are, this book instead focuses on the extraordinary theme of how the brain organizes the engineering of consciousness rather than on the more elusive and controversial deeper questions. 

As an illustration of the many mind-broadening themes broached in this superb book, instinct is often used as the be-all and end-all explanation of certain animal and human behaviors. Of the two hundred or so books I have read on the subject of consciousness and the brain, I have never before come across a more cogent explanation of how instinct arises and sets over many generations. 

Helen Thomson’s Unthinkable follows her around the world as she travels to meet individuals with some of the strangest neurological conditions imaginable.

Thomson is a respected journalist, and her writing talent really shines in describing these cases and how they are tied back to abnormalities in brain function. Unthinkable will teach you some neuroscience, but most of all it’s just a really fun read.

When researching my book, I consulted many books on literacy, but this is the one I liked the best.

Many books describe ways to improve reading and writing ability (especially for children), but this one goes beyond that and explains why we need to do them. The answers lie in the way the brain functions, and how it adapted to handle written language over the ages; in essence, how the brain learned to read and write. If we understand that, then the paths towards improving literacy (both child and adult), and addressing problems like dyslexia, become much clearer. 

Maryanne Wolf masterfully weaves historical, psychological, and educational perspectives together to present a fascinating window into the world of reading and writing. Read the book, and the reason for the quirky title soon becomes clear.

Luigi Galvani found the first evidence that the signals between the brain and the body are electric at the end of the 18th century in Italy.

But his discovery was almost immediately overshadowed by the much more immediately useful invention of the battery. After this, the very idea of bioelectricity fell into disrepute along with Galvani’s reputation.

Neurophysiologist Marco Piccolino and historian of science Marco Bresadola dig into the original controversy over animal electricity and detail how this schism would shape the next 200 years of neuroscience and electrophysiology.

The authors draw on deep-cut archival source material to conclusively restore the unfairly tarnished reputation of Galvani.

This is not a book for people with a mild interest, but will nourish those with an obsessive interest in every detail around the controversy. 

Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk - molecular biologist, and Wolf Singer, a distinguished neuroscientist, discuss the concept of mind: our idea of self, the unconscious, the nature of free will, and the implications of neuroplasticity.

Although its methods differ, Buddhism, like science, aims to study the mind empirically. Buddhism tries to achieve this aim through focused introspection, while science analyzes the mind through observation and experiment. Beyond the Self presents a synthesis of Buddhism’s subjective experiences and neuroscience’s experimental results.

Ricard and Singer draw on insights from Buddhism and neuroscience to help us live more compassionate and ultimately happier lives.