Here are 100 books that The Mind-Body Problem fans have personally recommended if you like
The Mind-Body Problem.
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The art of computer programming is a lot like the art of writing: It's not just about what your program says but about how it says it. One of the reasons I like the C and C++ languages—which I picked up in the late 1990s and haven't put down since—is that, as compiled, non-sandboxed languages, they promise total control over the machine. Show me where you want each byte of data to go in memory; show me the machine instructions you want; and I can make C++ do that for you.
Every "computer person" should read GEB at least once. Preferably in high school, when you still have the free time to dive deep into all the recreational math exercises. If you're already working 40-hour weeks and wonder who has time for Hofstadter's 750-page "metaphorical fugue on minds and machines," all I can say is: Better late than never!
Douglas Hofstadter's book is concerned directly with the nature of maps" or links between formal systems. However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. Goedel, Escher, Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.
I’m Mona Simpson, the author of seven novels. I grew up with a mentally ill parent who struggled to support me, her only child, as a single mother. I saw firsthand the toll living in the world cost her. One of my first experiences of adulthood was a sense of relief in discovering that staying above water was manageable, even easy. Walking home from my first real job, seeing all the other people’s backs and legs hurry ahead of me, I liked being one of the many. I wondered if my mother could have ever felt that ease if there had been an alternative.
This is the Horatio Alger story for talented young women who develop schizophrenia. Elyn Saks, a law professor at USC, tells a story of descent into a kind of madness that has a truly happy ending. Not the kind of happy ending literary novels offer us, in which contentment is laced with sadness. Elyn conquers her demons like a superhero.
Elyn Saks is Professor of Law and Psychiatry at University of Southern California Law School. She's the author of several books. Happily married. And - a schizophrenic. Saks lifts the veil on schizophrenia with her startling and honest account of how she learned to live with this debilitating disease. With a coolly clear, measured tone she talks about her condition, the stigma attached and the deadening effects of medication. Her controlled narrative is disrupted by interjections from the part of her mind she has learned to suppress. Delusions, hallucinations and threatening voices cut into her reality and Saks, in a…
I’ve been baffled by everything, especially myself, for as long as I can remember. In my late 20s, after years as a wandering hippy poet, I decided that science is our best hope for answers, and I became a science journalist. The mystery at the heart of science—as well as religion, philosophy, and the arts--is the mind-body problem. In a narrow, technical sense, the mind-body problem investigates how matter generates the mind, but it really asks: What are we, what can we be, what should we be? Below are some of my favorite books touching on these questions.
Sex is an essential part of who we are. What determines our sexual preferences? Do they stem primarily from nature or nurture? Deirdre McCloskey, an eminent economist, is especially qualified to answer these questions. She began her life as Donald, who was married and in his 50s when he realized that he was really a she and became a woman. Crossing, a memoir of McCloskey’s agonizing, exhilarating transformation, is a fascinating deep dive into sexual identity.
A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year
"I visited womanhood and stayed. It was not for the pleasures, though I discovered many I had not imagined, and many pains too. But calculating pleasures and pains was not the point. The point was who I am."
Once a golden boy of conservative economics and a child of 1950s privilege, Deirdre McCloskey (formerly Donald) had wanted to change genders from the age of eleven. But it was a different time, one hostile to any sort of straying from the path--against gays, socialists, women with professions, men without hats,…
I am a professor of physics, passionate about researching physics and inspiring non-scientists to enjoy learning about physics. My research addresses how to use quantum physics to accelerate the development of quantum information science including quantum computing, quantum communications, and quantum measurement. My current projects are in developing quantum satellite communications, increasing the precision of telescopes, and constructing a quantum version of the Internet—the Quantum Internet. These topics revolve around quantum optics—the study of how light interacts with matter. I originated the idea of a National Quantum Initiative and lobbied the U.S. Congress to pass it into law, resulting in large investments in the new, exciting field of quantum technology.
This masterful book goes one step further and presents a game-based analogy that goes a long way toward explaining how a quantum computer actually works. Working through the book, one gains an understanding of how qubits can be quantum entangled and how entanglement leads to computing tasks that could not be performed on an ordinary computer. Deceptively simple in appearance, the method leads you deep into the inner workings of quantum logic operations without realizing you are digesting some pretty advanced concepts. The author knows of what he writes, as his theoretical discoveries led to one of the world’s most ambitious quantum computing efforts.
COMPUTING. ENTANGLEMENT. REALITY. Books containing these three words are typically fluff or incomprehensible; this one is not. "Q is for Quantum" teaches a theory at the forefront of modern physics to an audience presumed to already know only basic arithmetic. Topics covered range from the practical (new technologies we can expect soon) to the foundational (old ideas that attempt to make sense of the theory). The theory is built up precisely and quantitatively. Deceptively vague jargon and analogies are avoided, and mysterious features of the theory are made explicit and not skirted. The tenacious reader will emerge with a better…
I always wanted to be a spy, but as I scare easily and can’t keep a secret, it was never going to happen. My respect and fascination with the intelligence community has never abated however, and I will never pass up an opportunity to engage with spy-related content. From going to spy museums across the globe to attending lectures to watching the latest entertaining (and totally unrealistic) spy flick, I love it all. I channel that love into writing humorous spy novels that feature fun, fearless females and ripped-from-the-headlines scenarios.
A book about the long-overlooked female cryptanalyst Elizebeth Friedman that also includes fun code-breaking activities to try out? Yes, please!
I’m not the least bit ashamed to direct people to this middle-grade book. I love that Butler Greenfield makes the world of code-breaking exciting and engaging, and I love that she puts a spotlight on a wildly talented woman who too often was seen as a helpmate to her cryptographer husband instead of as an equal (and maybe even more talented) partner.
I love that even though this is history long past, Butler Greenfield keeps me on the edge of my seat, wondering what will happen to Elizebeth next.
An inspiring true story, perfect for fans of Hidden Figures, about an American woman who pioneered codebreaking in WWI and WWII but was only recently recognized for her extraordinary contributions.
A YALSA EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION FINALIST • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Elizebeth Smith Friedman had a rare talent for spotting patterns and solving puzzles. These skills led her to become one of the top cryptanalysts in America during both World War I and World War II.
She originally came to code breaking through her love for Shakespeare when she was hired by an eccentric millionaire to…
We are sisters and the co-founders of Girl Defined Ministries, where our goal is to help modern girls understand and live out God’s timeless truth for womanhood. Through Girl Defined we talk about such topics as biblical womanhood, relationships, love, marriage, sexuality, identity, and much more.
The first few years of marriage can often be the most challenging. Luckily Sean Perron and Spencer Harmon (with some help from their wives) have written this series of “love letters” to newly married couples. In them, they address many common difficulties newlyweds face, from finances to sex. This is a great resource for not only couples, but those in a dating relationship or single as well!
The first years of marriage are filled with joys, sorrows . . . and surprises. These will set relationship patterns that will determine the course of your marriage. As you begin your life together, you probably have some questions, and you know the stakes are high. We want to help.
If you want to navigate the early years of your marriage in a way that glorifies Christ and honors his Word, this book will be a great resource for getting a conversation going. In a series of warm, short, practical letters, Sean Perron and Spencer Harmon, along with…
I’m pretty sure I’m about to die in space. And I just turned twelve and a half.
Blast off with the four winners of the StellarKid Project on a trip to the International Space Station and then to the Gateway outpost orbiting the Moon! It’s a dream come true until…
I am a nonfiction writer who aims to bring heart to my writing. If I can move the reader and enable them to connect to their inner world, then I consider that I have been successful. As I consider my purpose is rehabilitating women whom history has mistreated, my way into these misunderstood women is to examine their inner lives. What moves them and how they manage to survive and surmount their own heartbreak is the question that I am most interested in.
This book is a fearsomely clever collection of essays on love, marriage, and adultery, all written through the lens of trying to better understand the complexity of the human heart. Touching and tender, these explorations of relationships are wincingly honest and clearly written straight from the writer’s heartfelt experience
There is a purity of emotional intelligence to the book, which I find reassuring. Reading about the writers' relationship f*ck-ups, which they stumble into as if falling into potholes, made me feel okay about my own stumbling efforts to navigate my emotional life.
This book is for the once, never, and much married. For believers and skeptics, love's fools and love's thieves. It is for people with long memories and long histories and for people who reinvent themselves in every new town, new decade, new relationship. This book is for everyone whose heart lies where it should, where it shouldn't, and, in the end, where it must. -Amy Bloom, from the Foreword In these intensely personal essays, contemporary writers probe their experiences in and thoughts about one of our most enduring social and cultural institutions. Husbands and wives celebrate marriages that work, mourn…
Inspired both by my marriage to someone with ADHD as well as my own neurodiversity, I have been researching this topic for the last 15 years. As a collegiate athlete and stimulation seeker myself, my doctoral dissertation explored the impact of HIIT exercise on symptom presentation in adults with ADHD, and the results were inspiring. I truly believe that with the right set of tools and supports, those with ADHD can be the driving force behind humanity's many accomplishments. This belief also informs my strength-based counseling approach with those who have ADHD that I am honored to continue working with throughout their own self-empowerment journeys.
As someone in an ADHD marriage myself and a therapist who supports couples in these marriages, I was looking for a book to help all of us. This book hit the bill. I loved how simple yet actionable it was. I felt like the author was sympathetic and compassionate but also had the ability to cut through the difficult topics and help both the partner with and without ADHD see their part in the equation.
I really appreciated how she not only kept the partner with ADHD accountable for their use of coping skills but also how she highlighted the impact unhealthy expectations from the non-ADHD partner can have and how important compassion and teamwork were. I found many of the ADHD partners I was working with having “aha” moments about things that had frustrated them in the past.
I would highly recommend this book for anyone who has recently…
Updated in 2020! invaluable resource for couples in which one or both partners have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), this authoritative book guides troubled partners towards an understanding and appreciation for the struggles and triumphs of a relationship affected by it, and to integrate ADHD into their relationship in a more positive and less disruptive way. Going beyond traditional marriage counseling which can often discount the influence of ADHD, this discussion offers advice from the author's personal experience and years of research and identifies patterns of behavior that can hurt marriages-such as nagging, intimacy problems, sudden anger, and memory issues-through…
I am passionate about this topic because patriarchy has generally told us that raising babies and kids is a mundane, even vilified, topic that’s hardly worthy of artistic attention, which is ridiculous. It is the richest of topics, underlines the mysteries of being alive, and so many wonderful books that explore it are either overlooked, unwritten, or admired for how they address something else. I have a hard time saying “Best” of anything, but these are great books that contribute to the respect and reverence that the experience deserves.
I’m recommending this book because it brilliantly captures the overwhelm and mania of a woman whose husband of fifteen years has left her for a younger woman. This novel likewise brilliantly captures the overwhelm and mania of being responsible for children and living within the flimsy identity of being a wife and mother.
What I like best about this book is its darkness and strangeness. Raising children is full of paranoia, fear, and threats of danger at every turn, and a mother’s state of mind trickles down to all aspects of childrearing. It is refreshing to read such well-rendered (even darkly funny) desperation of a mom.
From the New York Times–bestselling author of My Brilliant Friend, this novel of a deserted wife’s descent into despair―and rage―is “a masterpiece” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
The Days of Abandonment is the gripping story of an Italian woman’s experiences after being suddenly left by her husband after fifteen years of marriage. With two young children to care for, Olga finds it more and more difficult to do the things she used to: keep a spotless house, cook meals with creativity and passion, refrain from using obscenities. After running into her husband with his much-younger new lover in public, she cannot even…
Red is a shelter cat adopted by the Gioppolo family. Fatty is a nameless stray who wanders into Red’s backyard and begins a tentative friendship with him. She’s had a horrible encounter with a human before, so she’s wary of joining the family. After seeing that Red appears to have…
As a trained therapist, educator, and coach for expectant and new parents, I understand on a deep level the importance of creating a strong foundation in building a family. I also was personally humbled at how difficult the transition to parenthood was for me and the challenges it presented in my relationship with my husband. While we’ve grown exponentially, I wanted to make it a little easier for other expectant parents to avoid some of the pitfalls that aren’t spoken about as much in becoming parents. I also wanted to help the new little beings arriving in the world to have more resourced, present parents. It’s a win-win.
Relationship experts who studied couples for years in the Love Lab in Seattle, the Gottmans understand that bringing a baby into the orbit of a couple nearly inevitably strains even the best relationship. They discovered that 2/3rds of couples experienced a significant decline in relationship satisfaction after having a baby. Their six-step plan helps expectant couples prepare for this huge transition by showing them ways to create an environment that nurtures intimacy, appreciation, and self- and couple-care.
Congratulations! You have a new baby. Don’t forget you also have a marriage.
Having a baby is a joyous experience, but even the best relationships are strained during the transition from duo to trio. In And Baby Makes Three, Love Lab™ experts John Gottman and Julie Schwartz Gottman teach couples the skills needed to maintain healthy marriages, so partners can avoid the pitfalls of parenthood by:
• Focusing on intimacy and romance • Replacing an atmosphere of criticism and irritability with one of appreciation • Preventing postpartum depression • Creating a home environment that nurtures physical, emotional, and mental health,…
