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Books That Can Transform your Thinking
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items As a creative writing major, I cannot undersell the value of reading. It is such a transformational habit, one that will shape your mind, inform your values and beliefs and allow you to exercise your critical thinking skills, show off a great variety...
Sections
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Psychology Books
Classic Books
Psychology Books
While it might take years of undergraduate and postgraduate education to become trained to be a psychologist, this does not mean that you and I cannot understand the basics. Psychology, as one of the most important social sciences, is critical to our...
Known as the “Father of psychoanalysis”, neurologist Sigmund Freud is best known for his work on developing ideas on the human psyche, the human mind and the behaviours that are influenced by the unconscious. Perhaps his most famous works, “The Inter...
Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud - Deluxe Edition
Alongside his classic book, “The Interpretation of Dreams”, “Civilisation and its Discontents” is a classic non-fiction book exploring the conflict that emerges between an individual's ability to express their individuality against the expectations o...
Civilization and Its Discontents (Harris Classics)
Both an appropriator of Freud (as his former colleague) and the founder of analytical psychology, Jung's work has revolutionized the nature of the field and has brought him renown among many of the social sciences and humanities. In this book, he exp...
Psychology of the Unconscious
A bestseller written by cognitive and behavioral psychologist David Kahneman, this book is a game changer. The book, about the two systems of thinking that operate within our minds, explains the difference between these systems, one which makes split...
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Steven Pinker is technically a linguist, writing about sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. However, he is important to the field of psychology, and as Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard, he has earned a spot on this list. Though ...
The Sense of Style: Guide to Writing
Canadian psychologist Jordan B. Peterson, who is popular for his lecturers and videos on YouTube, has taken to writing books. “12 Rules for Life” is a reference guide to an established number of rules that help one to navigate life and emerge with mo...
12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
A continuation of his previous work, “12 Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life” builds on psychological concepts and the understanding of human needs to formulate a way of life that fulfills these needs and desires. Furthermore, it helps to establish ...
Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life
Written in the 1990s by John Searle, “The Construction of Social Reality” is more philosophical than it is psychological. However, I have added it because of the value I believe it brings to this list. Social reality, in social theory, refers to the ...
The Construction of Social Reality
Classic Books
Fiction is often thought of as mere entertainment. Sometimes, if generous, people may believe that it has some social messaging. However, fiction is just as important as works that fall directly into the philosophical fields. Moreso, it is relevant t...
British writer George Orwell's most popular novel, this dystopian tale details the catastrophic consequences of centralized control and dictatorship, and how a society without free thought and speech can transform into a horrific state of censorship,...
Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel (Wordsworth)
British author George Orwell brings a book that has long since become a classic. An allegorical story that was meant to represent Soviet Union communism under Josef Stalin, Orwell presents another dystopian-esque chronicle. This one is based on a gro...
Animal Farm: 75th Anniversary Edition
Jane Austen wrote seven novels; one of which was incomplete and posthumously published. The reason I have included a box set instead of her individual stories is because I believe that Austen's prose is some of the greatest recorded writing in histor...
Complete Novels of Jane Austen (Wordsworth)
This story by Ray Bradbury follows along the theme of dystopia that this list brings. The story is of a fireman whose job it is to destory books, which have been banned due to their potential to give society radical ideas. The novel is a allegory tha...
Fahrenheit 451
Aldous Huxley is often compared to George Orwell due to the influence of his dystopian novel, “Brave New World”. Some even claim that without Huxley, there would be no Orwell and that he is the pioneer of dystopian literature. “Brave New World” is ab...
Brave New World
“Would you love me if I was still a worm?” If you ever wanted to know where the question came from, here it is. Kafka's masterpiece and the only short story of his that was published in his lifetime. The story details a man who wakes up after having ...
The Metamorphosis: Complete Edition w/ Illustrations
A semi-autobiographical story about Sylvia Plath's life, the novel is about mental health and the attitudes around it in the 1950s. The novel follows Esther Greenwood, who works for a women's magazine in New York City and struggles daily with feeling...
The Bell Jar: Timeless Coming-of-Age Classic
A story so famous that I may not even have to explain it to you. This classic tale about institutional racism and prejudice is narrated by the pre-teen protagonist, Jean-Louis Finch, affectionately nicknamed “Scout”. Told through her perspective as s...
To Kill a Mockingbird By Harper Lee