If you liked
Books like The Shallows
Loved The Shallows by Nicholas G. Carr? Here are 10 books with a similar appeal — drawn mostly from psychology, ranked by how confidently we'd recommend them next.
Psychology writing that earns its place is scientifically grounded and genuinely illuminating about how people actually think, feel and behave. This list spans 1946–2016 and includes 4 marked as essential reading in psychology.
10 books · ranked
-
1
Thinking, Fast and Slow
How the mind's two systems lead us into predictable errors; the definitive popular book on cognitive bias.
-
2
The Body Keeps the Score
How trauma lives in the body and how people heal; a landmark that reached far beyond therapists.
-
3
Flow
The psychologist who coined the concept of 'flow' — the state of complete immersion in a challenging activity — presents his research on optimal experience and argues that happiness comes not from leisure but from deep engagement with work and activity that stretches our abilities.
-
4
Man's Search for Meaning
A psychiatrist's survival of the camps and the meaning he drew from it; brief, profound and enduring.
-
5
Quiet
The hidden strengths of introverts in a world that prizes talking; validating and well-argued.
-
6
Hallucinations
Have you ever seen something that wasn't really there? Heard someone call your name in an empty house? Sensed someone following you and turned around to find nothing? ---------- Hallucinations don't b
-
7
Think Like a Freak
The book that can teach anyone to think like a freak
-
8
Superforecasting
Everyone would benefit from seeing further into the future, whether buying stocks, crafting policy, launching a new product, or simply planning the week’s meals. Unfortunately, people tend to be terri
-
9
The undoing project
Examines the history of behavioral economics, discussing the theory of Israeli psychologists who wrote the original studies undoing assumptions about the decision-making process and the influence it h
-
10
Outliers
What actually makes high achievers; the book that popularised the idea of deliberate practice.