100 books like Thinking in Pictures

To my knowledge, no one has written a main character like Don Tilman before. A tall, handsome genetics professor who’s never had a second date, he approaches his need for a wife with typical precision and the use of a complex spreadsheet. Don navigates the unfamiliar world of feelings and unplanned activities with his customary efficiency, but what is this strange new emotion he’s feeling?

I simply adore this book and often read it twice a year. It’s an absolute delight, funny, poignant, and so incredibly life-affirming. You’ll be cheering Don and Rosie on and hoping that everything works out for them. I do every time, and I know what happens!

So, in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I haven’t read this entire book, but I did read the original article that the book came out of and other articles by and about the Suskinds. 

Ron Suskind did exactly what Lynn Koegel and I believe all parents should do: he observed his son’s interest and used it as a bridge for communication and connection.

Disney was a huge part of our family life when our kids were little (and still plays a role in our lives today since one of my sons is a children’s television writer and another one has his own theme park video channel), so I love that it was Disney movies that brought the Suskinds together.

Explaining Humans engagingly begins, “It was five years into my life on Earth that I started to think I’d landed in the wrong place. I must have missed the stop.”

Part popular science, part memoir, part clarion call for neuroinclusion, Pang’s book is full of sophisticated and memorable observations about humans, neurodiversity, and Pang’s own neurodivergence.

I particularly enjoyed her comparison of the teamwork between human cells (neutral, effective, politics-free!) with that of typical human collaboration…and how much it made me realize that we can all substantially improve the latter at work to get the best out of each other and fulfill our collective potential.

I taught primary school children for many years, including children with a variety of learning difficulties.

It just so happened that at the time I was reading The Curious Incident I was also teaching a young boy with autistic spectrum disorder. The main character in the novel, Christopher Boone, shared so many character traits with the boy in my class that I pictured him the whole way through.

It’s not easy to write about neurodivergent people, you have to get it right as the last thing you want to do is patronize or stereotype. In my opinion, the author did an incredible job. I laughed and I cried, and I’m sure you will do the same.

One of the first books I read on the topic, The Power of Neurodiversity cogently reframes neurodiversity and neurodivergence as normal elements of humanity, with many overlooked positives and strengths.

Armstrong was careful not to cast neurodivergence as a “superpower”, or overlook challenges, but his chapters – such as “The Joy of the Hyperactive Brain” and “The Positive Side of Being Autistic” – represented a valuable and belated challenge to the stereotypes that to that time, in 2011, had cast neurodiversity only in a negative light.

Multiple passages have stuck with me ever since, for example how he challenges the conventional metaphor of brains as computers (either “working” or “broken”), suggesting instead that we make a better parallel with brains as forests; highly complex, living organisms. 

I was struck at the time, reading The Dyslexic Advantage, by the detail and nuance Drs. Brock and Fernette Eide presented about many of the common strengths of dyslexic brains.

Dyslexia, like other forms of neurodivergence, has typically been seen in (only) a negative light – yet many famous and successful business people are dyslexic, and credit this with their success. Indeed, a study in 2006 found that as many as a third of all entrepreneurs are dyslexic!

In a business world reliant on innovative thinking, The Dyslexic Advantage highlights the multiple attributes of dyslexic thinkers – from insight to pattern matching – and makes an overwhelming case for the (better) inclusion of dyslexic thinkers in society and at work. 

Neurodiversity is simply a reality of our species… so why are we only talking about this now in society and in the workplace?

I loved this collection of essays and reminiscences by key figures in the early neurodiversity movement, and found the stories within both touching and inspiring and even humorous (ever heard of the “Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical”?).

Here is where we can get an answer to the “why now” question: for the global neurodiversity conversation of the 2020s can be traced directly to these pioneers, their activism, and their determination to change the world. 

I’ve always been fascinated by the question, “What is personality?”

Is there someone we’re hardwired to be or do other factors so affect us that we’re who we are because of our experiences? What about extreme traits—are they an aspect of our personality or something more external? 

This book tackles these questions in such an interesting way, by focusing on mild forms of traits that might be diagnosable at higher levels. For example, if you’re quick to anger, is it possible you have a mild form of a rage disorder, or are you simply an angry person? 

One of the chapters is about adults with very mild traits of autism. It opens the door to our thinking more deeply about autism as an inherent part of someone’s personality, rather than something separate from them.

There’s something affirming and positive about that to me. I think any parent with a neurodivergent… show more.

Are philosophers like detectives, in that they chase their culprit over any terrain, and follow any clue? What can count as a clue?

Given the right context, pretty much anything, a pencil placed here rather than there, a picture of a car, something someone said, a fingerprint. Or are we more like technicians, like the fingerprint expert who only lifts and analyzes prints? The problem with being the fingerprint expert is that it can completely remove philosophers from their originating problems and turn them into mere technicians.

Ned Block is a detective, who has followed clues about the nature of consciousness deep into psychology and neuroscience. Here Block argues that there is a genuine distinction between seeing and thinking, and draws out the consequences of that for our theories of consciousness.

I was bowled over by Maureen Seaberg’s book, which brings together recent research that shows our human sensory capacity is much greater than we believed before!

In these days of rising AI, when we are taking a hard look at the limitations of our human capacities, Seaberg’s book shows that we human beings have much amazing sensory potential that remains undeveloped and can know first-hand the blended sensations of synesthesia or out-of-body experiences.

No wonder the book was included in Malcolm Gladwell’s “Next Big Idea Book Club”! I stayed awake an extra two hours one night because I could not put the book down. This book gave me a jolt of wonder about the world and our place within it.