10 books like Chaos

By James Gleick,

Here are 10 books that authors have personally recommended if you like Chaos. Shepherd is a community of 8,000+ authors sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Thinking, Fast and Slow

By Daniel Kahneman,

Book cover of Thinking, Fast and Slow

Oagis Revilo Author Of Spirituality Why Give a ****

From the list on helping to leggo that ego.

Who am I?

Admittedly, I’m just a painfully average Joe, but therein lies the paradoxical aptness of my credentials. Like most people, I wasn’t raised specially educated or trained, fed by a spiritual spoon. Instead, my qualifications arise from transitioning out of the common, materialistically driven, atheistic perspective to see the contrasting light of the other side. What was originally a drive for self-development has evolved into a passion for spirituality, which inevitably arises if one introspects long enough. These past few years, I’ve been motivated to try and make more sense out of this senseless topic with the intent of sharing its value with others. 

Oagis' book list on helping to leggo that ego

Discover why each book is one of Oagis' favorite books.

Why did Oagis love this book?

This book has helped me explore the way we think and make decisions.

By highlighting the cognitive biases that can impact our decision-making, it provides practical insights and strategies for making better choices. Written in an engaging and accessible style, the book is relevant not only for individuals but also for larger group entities.

It has helped me objectivize my thinking processes and to think more critically and to be less impulsive. It has also been useful in how I go about trying to form better habits while minimizing detrimental ones.

Thinking, Fast and Slow

By Daniel Kahneman,

Why should I read it?

33 authors picked Thinking, Fast and Slow as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The phenomenal international bestseller - 2 million copies sold - that will change the way you make decisions

'A lifetime's worth of wisdom' Steven D. Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics
'There have been many good books on human rationality and irrationality, but only one masterpiece. That masterpiece is Thinking, Fast and Slow' Financial Times

Why is there more chance we'll believe something if it's in a bold type face? Why are judges more likely to deny parole before lunch? Why do we assume a good-looking person will be more competent? The answer lies in the two ways we make choices: fast,…


What Is the Name of This Book?

By Raymond M. Smullyan,

Book cover of What Is the Name of This Book?: The Riddle of Dracula and Other Logical Puzzles

Martin Cohen Author Of Rethinking Thinking: Problem Solving from Sun Tzu to Google

From the list on thinking skills.

Who am I?

Most of my books (101 Philosophy Problems, Wittgenstein's Beetle, Critical Thinking for Dummies, and so on) are on thinking skills, in the broad sense. However, I'm always a bit uncomfortable when I'm presented as an expert on thinking, as people tend to imagine I must have some brainy strategies for thinking better when my interest is also in the ways we "think badly." Because logic is really a blunt tool, compared to the brilliant insights that come with intuition. Yet how do you train your intuition? So the books I've chosen here are all ones that I've found don't so much tell you how to think, but actually get you thinking. And that's always been my aim in my books too.

Martin's book list on thinking skills

Discover why each book is one of Martin's favorite books.

Why did Martin love this book?

Raymond Smullyan is a riddler, a puzzler, well-known for various Knights and Knaves puzzles, a type of logic game where some characters can only answer questions truthfully, and others only falsely. However, I recommend this book as here he offers not only logical tricks but many insights too. One section offers the World's shortest explanation of Gödel's theorem which is a magnificent achievement but frankly, reminds me why I like long explanations sometimes.

Basically, this is an examination of boolean logic, which is (rather boringly) a branch of algebra in which all operations are either true or false, and relationships are expressed with logical operators such as and, or, or not. So it’s serious stuff, but also pretty funny along the way.

What Is the Name of This Book?

By Raymond M. Smullyan,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked What Is the Name of This Book? as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"The most original, most profound, and most humorous collection of recreational logic and math problems ever written." — Martin Gardner, Scientific American
"The value of the book lies in the wealth of ingenious puzzles. They afford amusement, vigorous exercise, and instruction." — Willard Van Orman Quine, The New York Times Book Review
If you're intrigued by puzzles and paradoxes, these 200 mind-bending logic puzzles, riddles, and diversions will thrill you with challenges to your powers of reason and common sense. Raymond M. Smullyan — a celebrated mathematician, logician, magician, and author — presents a logical labyrinth of more than 200…


Alice in Wonderland

By Lewis Carroll, Illustrated by Rebecca Dautremer,

Book cover of Alice in Wonderland

Lance Lee Author Of Orpheus Rising: By Sam And His Father John With Some Help From A Very Wise Elephant Who Likes To Dance

From the list on YA/middle grade fantasy and their parents.

Who am I?

I don't write within received categories: our lives aren't lived in categories, but are full of varying realities, whether of home, childhood, marriage, parenthood, fantasy, dream, work, or relaxation, and more all mixed together. I can't write in any other way, however dominant a particular strand or age may be on the surface in a given work. Orpheus Rising may have a child hero, and a fantastic, elegant Edwardian Elephant as a spirit guide, but it let me tell a story of love lost and regained, of family broken and remade, of a father in despair and remade, themes of real importance in any life.

Lance's book list on YA/middle grade fantasy and their parents

Discover why each book is one of Lance's favorite books.

Why did Lance love this book?

We absorb this tale, like Peter Pan's, from childhood, and it provides us all with a leaning to light-hearted fantasy and a story pattern of leaving the real world and returning to it. An adventure may begin by going through a wardrobe as in the first Narnia novel, or into and out of Tom Bombadil's Old Forest in Tolkien. Alice goes down a rabbit hole. There are rabbit holes, wardrobes, forests, sailboats.... The world Alice gets to is full of strangeness appealed to me for Orpheus Rising whose characters have a similar variety.

Alice in Wonderland

By Lewis Carroll, Illustrated by Rebecca Dautremer,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Alice in Wonderland as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When Alice sees the White Rabbit running by on the river bank, she follows him, tumbling down a Rabbit Hole into a magical world where nothing is ever as it seems...

Lewis Carroll's classic story has delighted children since 1865. One hundred and fifty years since its first publication, Hodder celebrates in style with this sumptuous new edition, illustrated by Rebecca Dautremer, whose dreamlike illustrations bring vibrant new life to Carroll's beloved characters. The original text appears complete and unabridged.

Rebecca Dautremer is the celebrated illustrator of The Secret Lives of Princesses.


Thought Experiments

By Roy A. Sorensen,

Book cover of Thought Experiments

Martin Cohen Author Of Rethinking Thinking: Problem Solving from Sun Tzu to Google

From the list on thinking skills.

Who am I?

Most of my books (101 Philosophy Problems, Wittgenstein's Beetle, Critical Thinking for Dummies, and so on) are on thinking skills, in the broad sense. However, I'm always a bit uncomfortable when I'm presented as an expert on thinking, as people tend to imagine I must have some brainy strategies for thinking better when my interest is also in the ways we "think badly." Because logic is really a blunt tool, compared to the brilliant insights that come with intuition. Yet how do you train your intuition? So the books I've chosen here are all ones that I've found don't so much tell you how to think, but actually get you thinking. And that's always been my aim in my books too.

Martin's book list on thinking skills

Discover why each book is one of Martin's favorite books.

Why did Martin love this book?

This is the book that got me thinking about thought experiments. It really opened up my eyes to a whole new way of thinking – mainly by introducing me to the wonderfully playful, indeed modern style of writing that Galileo used to present his groundbreaking scientific theories – way back in seventeenth-century Italy!

Sorenson is a philosophy professor and goes on a bit, but his book was also groundbreaking in a way. My own books owe him a debt and for scholarly types, he also suggests a general theory "of" thought experiments: meaning what they are, how they work, and what is good - and bad - about them.

Thought Experiments

By Roy A. Sorensen,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Thought Experiments as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this book, Roy Sorensen presents the first general theory of the thought experiment. He analyses a wide variety of thought experiments, ranging from aesthetics to zoology, and explores what thought experiments are, how they work, and what their positive and negative aspects are. Sorensen also sets his theory within an evolutionary framework and integrates recent advances in experimental psychology and the history of science.


Leadership and the New Science

By Margaret J. Wheatley,

Book cover of Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World

Bettina von Stamm Author Of The Other Side of Growth: An Innovator's Responsibilities in an Emerging World

From the list on today’s complex world and help our planet.

Who am I?

As an innovation expert for over 30 years, I've been cautioning about the "dark side" of innovation and emphasized the importance of sustainability. Though in light of the urgency of our planet's situation, we need to shift our focus from sustainability to regeneration. The unprecedented complexity and connectedness of today’s world demand thinking in systems, and the kind of innovation that leads to the transformation of our current social and economic systems so we can live in harmony with nature. This requires us to question who we collaborate with, what we value, and how we create value. We need to work together differently, with different leadership, and to change our own ways of thinking.

Bettina's book list on today’s complex world and help our planet

Discover why each book is one of Bettina's favorite books.

Why did Bettina love this book?

In her book, first published in 1999, Meg Wheatley was the first to bring together three topics that have always been close to my heart: leadership, innovation, and complexity theory. 

I also happen to believe that deeply understanding these three is necessary for coping, let alone thriving, in the context of the 21st century. This is the book to start the journey with.

Her thoughts express what I communicate with my writing: the urgency to innovate innovation, a delight in embracing uncertainty and complexity, and the need for leadership approaches to evolve.

Leadership and the New Science

By Margaret J. Wheatley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Leadership and the New Science as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The new edition of the bestselling, acclaimed, and influential guide to applying the new science to organizations and management. In this new edition, Margaret Wheatley describes how the new science radically alters our understanding of the world and how it can teach us to live and work well together in these chaotic times.
 
We live in a time of chaos, rich in potential for new possibilities. A new world is being born. We need new ideas, new ways of seeing, and new relationships to help us now. New science—the new discoveries in biology, chaos theory, and quantum physics that are…


Chaos Bound

By N. Katherine Hayles,

Book cover of Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science

Stuart Walton Author Of An Excursion Through Chaos: Disorder Under the Heavens

From the list on chaos and disorder.

Who am I?

My work has always been interested in the ways in which systems can be disrupted and subverted by taking radical fresh approaches to them, even where the prevailing view is that overturning them can only lead to the dreaded chaos.

Stuart's book list on chaos and disorder

Discover why each book is one of Stuart's favorite books.

Why did Stuart love this book?

In a study of great conceptual daring, Hayles examines the links between scientific chaos theory and the representations of disorder in modern literature, from Stanislaw Lem to Doris Lessing. She is more or less unique in the present day in being able to align hard science with contemporary aesthetics, a world away from the half-digested appropriation of scientific chatter by those who love nothing better than an algorithm. Her grasp of contemporary theory is sound, and her readings of modern literature are sensitive and enlightening.

Chaos Bound

By N. Katherine Hayles,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Chaos Bound as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

N. Katherine Hayles here investigates parallels between contemporary literature and critical theory and the science of chaos. She finds in both scientific and literary discourse new interpretations of chaos, which is seen no longer as disorder but as a locus of maximum information and complexity. She examines structures and themes of disorder in The Education of Henry Adams, Doris Lessing's Golden Notebook, and works by Stanislaw Lem. Hayles shows how the writings of poststructuralist theorists including Barthes, Lyotard, Derrida, Serres, and de Man incorporate central features of chaos theory.


Chaos Imagined

By Martin Meisel,

Book cover of Chaos Imagined: Literature, Art, Science

Stuart Walton Author Of An Excursion Through Chaos: Disorder Under the Heavens

From the list on chaos and disorder.

Who am I?

My work has always been interested in the ways in which systems can be disrupted and subverted by taking radical fresh approaches to them, even where the prevailing view is that overturning them can only lead to the dreaded chaos.

Stuart's book list on chaos and disorder

Discover why each book is one of Stuart's favorite books.

Why did Stuart love this book?

A comprehensive, elegantly written survey of the territory from a genuine polymath, Chaos Imagined considers the philosophical issues raised by the turn to disorder and chance in everything from cutting-edge artistic movements to mathematical chaos theory. Meisel moves with agile ease from historical narrative to considerations of some quite knotty theoretical problems in a style that is genuinely readable and elegant, rather than academically abstruse. He is as assured on avant-garde art movements as he is on the more elusive aspects of western philosophy.

Chaos Imagined

By Martin Meisel,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Chaos Imagined as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The stories we tell in our attempt to make sense of the world-our myths and religion, literature and philosophy, science and art-are the comforting vehicles we use to transmit ideas of order. But beneath the quest for order lies the uneasy dread of fundamental disorder. True chaos is hard to imagine and even harder to represent. In this book, Martin Meisel considers the long effort to conjure, depict, and rationalize extreme disorder, with all the passion, excitement, and compromises the act provokes. Meisel builds a rough history from major social, psychological, and cosmological turning points in the imagining of chaos.…


The Joy of X

By Steven Strogatz,

Book cover of The Joy of X: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity

Gary Chartrand Author Of Mathematical Proofs: A Transition to Advanced Mathematics

From the list on if you want to be a mathematician.

Who am I?

I have enjoyed mathematics and writing since I’ve been a kid, not only enjoying doing research in mathematics but assisting others to appreciate and enjoy mathematics. Along the way, I’ve gained an interest in the history of mathematics and the mathematicians who created mathematics. Perhaps most important, my primary goal has been to show others how enjoyable mathematics can be. Mathematics has given me the marvelous opportunity to meet and work with other mathematicians who have a similar passion for mathematics.

Gary's book list on if you want to be a mathematician

Discover why each book is one of Gary's favorite books.

Why did Gary love this book?

There are books that simply tell us (or perhaps remind us) how mathematics can be interesting and fun. This delightful book is one of the best, describing how mathematics can be amazing, surprising, and beautiful, all at the same time. While mathematics has helped people accomplish so many things that we may have never dreamed of, this book shows us that mathematics can be popular as well. 

The Joy of X

By Steven Strogatz,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Joy of X as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Award-winning Steven Strogatz, one of the foremost popularisers of maths, has written a witty and fascinating account of maths' most compelling ideas and how, so often, they are an integral part of everyday life.

Maths is everywhere, often where we don't even realise. Award-winning professor Steven Strogatz acts as our guide as he takes us on a tour of numbers that - unbeknownst to the unitiated - connect pop culture, literature, art, philosophy, current affairs, business and even every day life. In The Joy of X, Strogatz explains the great ideas of maths - from negative numbers to calculus, fat…


Book cover of Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Natural Systems

Yuha Jung Author Of Transforming Museum Management: Evidence-Based Change through Open Systems Theory

From the list on encouraging readers to question the status quo.

Who am I?

My areas of expertise are museum management and arts administration. More specifically, I study structures of arts organizations and how they are connected or disconnected to their communities and larger societies using the systems theory and concept of mutual causality. In the process, I point out where the systems (i.e., museums) become stagnant and find a leverage point to address that stagnation by bringing in new input and different ways of thinking about the culture and structure of the organization. In most of my research, I try to find blindspots of following or doing “what was just there (i.e., status quo)” instead of evaluating what it did and how it can be improved. 

Yuha's book list on encouraging readers to question the status quo

Discover why each book is one of Yuha's favorite books.

Why did Yuha love this book?

This book spoke to me as a scholar of systems theory and due to my upbringing in Buddhist culture. Macy discusses how core teachings of interdependence in Buddhism and the mutual causation concept of general systems theory are similar. This book emphasizes the interdependent relationships among different people, things, societies, and ecosystems as mutually affecting and not unidirectional, leading to and encouraging collective action toward mutual benefits. I also love this book because it can introduce readers to philosophical thoughts that are other than Western, which we tend to be bombarded with in academic publications and education in the US. 

Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory

By Joanna Macy,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book brings important new dimensions to the interface between contemporary Western science and ancient Eastern wisdom. Here for the first time the concepts and insights of general systems theory are presented in tandem with those of the Buddha. Remarkable convergences appear between core Buddhist teachings and the systems view of reality, arising in our century from biology and extending into the social and cognitive sciences. Giving a cogent introduction to both bodies of thought, and a fresh interpretation of the Buddha’s core teaching of dependent co-arising, this book shows how their common perspective on causality can inform our lives.…


Book cover of Divine Action and Modern Science

Brendan Sweetman Author Of Evolution, Chance, and God: Understanding the Relationship Between Evolution and Religion

From the list on religion, evolution, and chance.

Who am I?

I'm a teacher, philosopher, writer, Professor of Philosophy, and holder of the Sullivan Chair in Philosophy at Rockhurst University, Kansas City, Missouri, USA. I'm the author/editor of sixteen books on such topics as religion and science, religion and politics, contemporary European philosophy, and political philosophy. I'm particularly interested in how religion and science, especially evolution, can be shown to be compatible with each other, as well as in developing an argument that there is no chance operating in nature (including in biology). My book and the books below explore these fascinating topics from almost every possible angle, and should whet readers’ appetites for further thinking about these intriguing matters!

Brendan's book list on religion, evolution, and chance

Discover why each book is one of Brendan's favorite books.

Why did Brendan love this book?

This book considers the relationship between the natural sciences and the concept of God acting in the world. Nicholas Saunders examines the Biblical motivations for asserting a continuing notion of divine action and identifies several different theological approaches to the problem. He considers their theoretical relationships with the laws of nature, indeterminism, and probabilistic causation. His radical critiques of current attempts to reconcile special divine action with quantum theory, chaos theory, and quantum chaos are especially interesting, though he will not convince everyone! Saunders provocatively suggests that we are still far from a satisfactory account of how God might act in a manner that is consonant with modern science despite the copious recent scholarship in this area.

Divine Action and Modern Science

By Nicholas Saunders,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Divine Action and Modern Science as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Divine Action and Modern Science considers the relationship between the natural sciences and the concept of God acting in the world. Nicholas Saunders examines the Biblical motivations for asserting a continuing notion of divine action and identifies several different theological approaches to the problem. He considers their theoretical relationships with the laws of nature, indeterminism, and probabilistic causation. His book then embarks on a radical critique of current attempts to reconcile special divine action with quantum theory, chaos theory and quantum chaos. As well as considering the implications of these problems for common interpretations of divine action, Saunders also surveys…


5 book lists we think you will like!

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