Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

How do we make decisions--good and bad--and why are some people so much better at it than others? Thats the question Malcolm Gladwell asks and answers in the follow-up to his huge bestseller, The Tipping Point. Utilizing case studies as diverse as speed dating, pop music, and the shooting of Amadou Diallo, Gladwell reveals that what we think of as decisions made in the blink of an eye are much more complicated... (more)

Alex & Me

How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence - and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process

by Irene M. Pepperberg

On September 6, 2007, an African Grey parrot named Alex died prematurely at age thirty-one. His last words to his owner, Irene Pepperberg, were "You be good. I love you." What would normally be a quiet, very private event was, in Alex's case, headline news. Over the thirty years they had worked together, Alex and Irene had become famous—two pioneers who opened an unprecedented window into the hidden yet vast... (more)

Predictably Irrational

The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

by Dan Ariely

Why do our headaches persist after taking a one-cent aspirin but disappear when we take a 50-cent aspirin? Why does recalling the Ten Commandments reduce our tendency to lie, even when we couldn't possibly be caught? Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-five cents on a can of soup? Why do we go back for second helpings at the unlimited buffet, even when our stomachs... (more)

The Tipping Point

How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

by Malcolm Gladwell

This celebrated New York Times bestsellernow poised to reach an even wider audience in paperbackis a book that is changing the way North Americans think about selling products and disseminating ideas. Gladwells new afterword to this edition describes how readers can constructively apply the tipping point principle in their own lives and work. Widely hailed as an important work that offers not only a road map to... (more)

The Design of Everyday Things

by Donald A. Norman, Donald A. Norman, Donald A. Norman

Donald Norman's best-selling plea for user-friendly design, with more than 175,000 copies sold to date, is now a Basic paperback. First, businesses discovered quality as a key competitive edge; next came service. Now, Donald A. Norman, former Director of the Institute for Cognitive Science at the University of California, reveals how smart design is the new competitive frontier. The Design of Everyday Things... (more)

An Anthropologist on Mars

Seven Paradoxical Tales

by Oliver Sacks

To these seven narratives of neurological disorder Dr. Sacks brings the same humanity, poetic observation, and infectious sense of wonder that are apparent in his bestsellers Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. These men, women, and one extraordinary child emerge as brilliantly adaptive personalities, whose conditions have not so much debilitated them as ushered them into another reality.

On Intelligence

by Jeff Hawkins, Sandra Blakeslee

From the inventor of the PalmPilot comes a new and compelling theory of intelligence, brain function, and the future of intelligent machines Jeff Hawkins, the man who created the PalmPilot, Treo smart phone, and other handheld devices, has reshaped our relationship to computers. Now he stands ready to revolutionize both neuroscience and computing in one stroke, with a new understanding of intelligence itself. ... (more)

Nudge

Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness

by Richard H. Thaler

Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. The reason, the authors explain, is that, being human, we all are susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes make us poorer and less healthy; we often make bad decisions involving education, personal... (more)

The game : penetrating the secret society of pickup artists

The game : penetrating the secret society of pickup artists

by Neil Strauss

"This is one hugely entertaining book. I loved every page. And I will never let Neil Strauss within fifty feet of my wife." --A. J. Jacobs, Esquire Hidden somewhere, in nearly every major city in the world, is an underground seduction lair. And in these lairs, men trade the most devastatingly effective techniques ever invented to charm women. This is not fiction. These men really exist. They live... (more)

Multiple intelligences : new horizons

by Howard Gardner

Gardner's seminal 1993 account of the practical applications of Multiple Intelligences theory is now completely updated and expanded to reflect the latest developments in the field Howard Gardner's brilliant conception of individual competence has changed the face of education in the twenty-three years since the publication of his classic work, Frames of Mind . Since then thousands of educators, parents, and... (more)

The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self & Soul

The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self & Soul

by Douglas R. Hofstadter, Daniel C. Dennett

Brilliant, shattering, mind-jolting, The Mind's I is a searching, probing nook--a cosmic journey of the mind--that goes deeply into the problem of self and self-consciousness as anything written in our time. From verbalizing chimpanzees to scientific speculations involving machines with souls, from the mesmerizing, maze-like fiction of Borges to the tantalizing, dreamlike fiction of Lem and Princess... (more)

How the Mind Works

by Robert Edward Fussell, Gary Michael Smith, Steven Pinker

In this extraordinary bestseller, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading cognitive scientists, does for the rest of the mind what he did for language in his 1994 book, The Language Instinct. He explains what the mind is, how it evolved, and how it allows us to see, think, feel, laugh, interact, enjoy the arts, and ponder the mysteries of life. And he does it with the wit that prompted Mark Ridley to... (more)

Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme

Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme

by Richard Brodie

Virus of the Mind is the first popular book devoted to the science of memetics, a controversial new field that transcends psychology, biology, anthropology, and cognitive science. Memetics is the science of memes, the invisible but very real DNA of human society. In Virus of the Mind, Richard Brodie carefully builds on the work of scientists Richard Dawkins, Douglas Hofstadter, Daniel Dennett, and... (more)

Frames of Mind : The Theory of Multiple Intelligences/Tenth Anniversary Edition

Frames of Mind : The Theory of Multiple Intelligences/Tenth Anniversary Edition

by Howard Gardner

More than 200,00 copies of earlier editions have been sold; this reissue includes a new introduction by the author to mark the twenty-first birthday of this remarkable book.

Influence

The Psychology of Persuasion

by Robert B. Cialdini

Some people just won't take no for an answer. In Influence, Dr. Robert Cialdini explains the six psychological principles that drive our powerful impulse to comply to the pressures of others and shows how we can defend ourselves against manipulation (or put the principles to work in our own interest). Influence guarantees two things: Readers will never say yes again when they really mean no, and they'll be... (more)

Shadows of the Mind : A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness

Shadows of the Mind : A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness

by Roger Penrose

The bestselling author of The Emperor's New Mind offers another exhilarating look at modern science as he mounts an even more powerful attack on artifical intelligence. Shadows of the Mind points the way to a new science, one that may eventually explain the physical basis of the human mind. 49 illustrations.

Emerging Mind

by Vilaynur Ramachandran, V. S. Ramachandran

This is a scintillating introduction to the latest thinking on the brain and the mind by the world's leading expert. Neuroscience can now begin to unlock the key to the self. Our knowledge of the brain has progressed so rapidly that it will change the way we think of ourselves as human beings. It will change our notion of understanding. This is a revolution which will have impact on all our lives. Neuroscientists... (more)

Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious

Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious

by Gerd Gigerenzer

An engaging explanation of the science behind Malcolm Gladwell’s bestselling Blink Gerd Gigerenzer is one of the researchers of behavioral intuition responsible for the science behind Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller Blink . Gladwell showed us how snap decisions often yield better results than careful analysis. Now, Gigerenzer explains why our intuition is such a powerful decision-making tool.... (more)

Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind

Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind

by Dorothy L. Cheney, Robert M. Seyfarth

In 1838 Charles Darwin jotted in a notebook, “He who understands baboon would do more towards metaphysics than Locke.” Baboon Metaphysics is Dorothy L. Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth’s fascinating response to Darwin’s challenge. Cheney and Seyfarth set up camp in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, where they could intimately observe baboons and their social world. Baboons live in groups of up to 150,... (more)

The Integral Vision: A Very Short Introduction to the Revolutionary Integral Approach to Life, God, the Universe, and Everything

The Integral Vision: A Very Short Introduction to the Revolutionary Integral Approach to Life, God, the Universe, and Everything

by Ken Wilber

Suppose we took everything that all the various world cultures have to tell us about human potential—about psychological, spiritual, and social growth—and identified the basic patterns that connect these pieces of knowledge. What if we attempted to create an all-inclusive map that touches the most important factors from all of the world's great traditions? Ken Wilber's Integral Vision provides such a map. Using... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: cognition

The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

by Malcolm Gladwell

How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence - and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process

by Irene M. Pepperberg

The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

by Dan Ariely

How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

by Malcolm Gladwell

by Donald A. Norman, Donald A. Norman, Donald A. Norman

Seven Paradoxical Tales

by Oliver Sacks

by Jeff Hawkins, Sandra Blakeslee

Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness

by Richard H. Thaler

by Neil Strauss

by Howard Gardner

by Douglas R. Hofstadter, Daniel C. Dennett

by Robert Edward Fussell, Gary Michael Smith, Steven Pinker

by Richard Brodie

by Howard Gardner

The Psychology of Persuasion

by Robert B. Cialdini

by Roger Penrose

by Vilaynur Ramachandran, V. S. Ramachandran

by Gerd Gigerenzer

by Dorothy L. Cheney, Robert M. Seyfarth

by Ken Wilber