Big Books for Deep Thinkers

How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World, by Steven Johnson
Johnson explores the connections, often hidden and sometimes very surprising, between people, events, and inventions that have changed our world—like the fact that Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr, one of the biggest names in movies in the 1940s, is directly responsible for the Wi-Fi technology you’re probably using right now to read this. Life can sometimes seem random, but it’s all a matter of perspective. In reality, everything is connected, and this book will help you understand just how connected it all is, an epiphany that will change the way you view everything from air conditioning to your iPad.

This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, by Naomi Klein
Many of us have climate-change fatigue: whatever your opinion or beliefs on the subject, we’re all exhausted from hearing about it constantly. Klein’s disturbing, challenging book makes a radical argument that’s like a palate cleanser for your brain: climate change isn’t something that can be dealt with via the existing system of governments, treaties, legislation, and activism. It’s a global problem that requires nothing less than a complete reorganization of the world, from its economies to its political systems. This is the very definition of Big Idea thinking, and it’s a little frightening to read—but then the best ideas often are.

The Meaning of Human Existence, by Edward O. Wilson
The question of why we’re here as a species has been the province of philosophers for about as long as we’ve had language. Wilson brings a more scientific approach to the question, suggesting that our unique self-awareness as the only known species to be cognizant of our mortality makes it possible to approach the question of why we’re here in a formal, testable way—and to extrapolate from there to understand the future of a species that seems poised to take control of the fundamental forces that made us in the first place, via genetic engineering, transformational medical procedures, and other advances. If you’ve ever sat under a canopy of stars and wondered why this tiny planet in this solar system produced living things capable of even asking these questions, this book will absorb, disturb, and ultimately inspire you.

Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion, by Sam Harris
We all have a tendency toward binary thinking, a tendency that’s very clear when the subject of spirituality comes up. Can you be spiritual without believing in a deity? About 20% of people in this country believe you can. Harris argues that it’s as much a mistake to rely entirely on science as it is to rely completely on religion—that we need to look inward and exist in the moment in order to truly perceive reality. The combination of science and spirituality explored in this book takes fundamentals like the proven benefits of meditation and investigates the why behind them, offering up a new way of contemplating our existence that goes beyond the traditional binary choice of God or science. Anyone who’s wondering about her own spiritual life and not satisfied with traditional answers will find this book to be an eye- and brain-opening experience.

The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind, by Michio Kaku
The phrase “we are living in the future” will come to mind often while reading this book. More and more these days, it seems as if we’re poised on the precipice of some amazing advance in our understanding of the human brain that will unlock incredible potential. Kaku reports on experiments and research that sounds as if they come straight from a science fiction film: smart pills, telepathy, mind control. The remarkable thing is that this is real research, and when Kaku begins extrapolating into future possibilities, you start to think about how to ensure you live long enough to see the future he’s describing.

Leonardo’s Notebooks, by Leonardo da Vinci, H. Anna Suh (Editor)
Leonardo da Vinci may have been the most brilliant human ever to live, and the fact that you can read his notebooks while sitting on the subway or curled up in bed at night is mindblowing. Organized and edited from da Vinci’s actual handwritten notebooks, this book offers up his thoughts and investigations into a wide variety of subjects, from artistic techniques to astronomy to the inventions he designed. Anyone looking for inspiration regarding what a single person can accomplish with just his brain and some curiosity will come away from this book feeling renewed—and challenged to match even a portion of what da Vinci achieved.

Molecules: The Elements and the Architecture of Everything in the Universe, by Theodore Gray, Nick Mann
It’s remarkable how many of us go through our lives without thinking about the world around us—the fundamental building blocks that make up the universe. Gray and photographer Mann have created an amazing book that walks you through how atoms combine to form the materials that we touch and experience every single day, the materials that form our world, our solar system, our universe, and yet are invisible to us: molecules. Anyone who wants to understand the world around her and how things work will find this book absorbing.

How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking, by Jordan Ellenberg
If you’re like me you’ve often thought—and said out loud—that you’ll never use the math you learned in school. Or, in my case, didn’t learn. But the universe is, in a very real sense, math. Math governs everything, and Ellenberg does an amazing job of stripping away the jargon and complexity that makes math so difficult and intimidating and showing you that everything—and I mean everything—is governed by it. The key to truly understanding everything from poll results to baseball (the key, in other words, to always being right) is understanding the mathematical principles that underlie them. Ellenberg not only makes this point effectively and elegantly, he also helps you understand complex concepts that will make the universe make sense.

Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World, by Mark Miodownik
Stuff. The world is made of it, but have you ever paused to wonder why the stuff in your house or office behaves the way it does? Why some metals bend easily, while others don’t? Why some plastic melts in the microwave and some doesn’t? If you never imagined you’d find a materials scientist fascinating, hilarious company, you haven’t read Miodownik, who answers all the questions about the stuff in your life you never thought to ask, and does so with entertaining anecdotes and truly fascinating information about everything—from the pen in your pocket to exotic materials you may never actually see outside of a lab. This is a book that truly makes you see the world differently.

The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, by Nicholas Carr
The idea of automation excites some of us and frightens others. The idea of a self-driving car might be terrifying, but the idea of a self-parking car pleases anyone who’s struggled to squeeze his car into a tight spot on a busy street. Carr takes that unease many of us feel with the invasion of software into our lives as a starting point and explores, in clear, entertaining prose, the dark side of increasing automation. He makes the point that there is a connection between our sense of engagement and happiness with the world and the level of automation and abstraction we experience. At once sobering and inspiring, this book will make you see the world around you a little more clearly.

The Human Age: The World Shaped By Us, by Diane Ackerman
In the modern day it can seem as if there is only one narrative about our relationship as a species with the world: a negative one, marked by climate change, extinctions, and depletion of resources. Ackerman takes a different approach, celebrating the amazing achievements of the human race in subduing the world and remaking it into the modern, relatively comfortable place we know today. Without losing sight of the mistakes we’ve made, he acknowledges that as a species we’ve had an incredible—and not always negative—impact on the natural world.

The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution, by Jonathan Eig
Sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of how revolutionary certain aspects of modern life are; we get used to them, and blind to their impact. Effective birth control might seem like a given these days, but it wasn’t that long ago that there were no real options, and even the idea that a drug could be invented that prevented pregnancy was incredibly controversial. The story of the people who created this fundamental change to our existence is explored in dramatic fashion, reminding us that our lives were shaped by invisible hands we rarely think about, but certainly should.

Is Your Neighbor a Zombie?: Compelling Philosophical Puzzles That Challenge Your Beliefs, by Jeremy Stangroom
There’s a lot of talk these days about “brain health” and using brain exercises and apps to keep yours nimble and healthy. But you don’t need to pay for a service or buy an app to exercise your thinking muscles. Thought experiments have existed for centuries and serve to challenge you and force you to think in new and unexpected ways. Stangroom has collected some of the most intriguing and powerful of these puzzles from history and created a few new ones, all of which are fascinating and will lead you in mental directions you couldn’t predict. This is a book meant to be shared and discussed among your friends and family—because the results of these puzzles will surprise you.

Hubble’s Universe: Greatest Discoveries and Latest Images, by Terence Dickinson
The Hubble Telescope is a clear example of people becoming blinded to the extraordinary. It’s a phenomenal technological achievement that ought to amaze us every time we think of it, but it’s been up there for so long we take it for granted. This book might change that: it collects some of the most literally awe-inspiring photos the Hubble has produced using the newly installed Wide Field Camera 3, giving us a glimpse of our universe combined with informative and clearly written text that explains what we’re looking at and some of the implications of each photo. As beautiful as any piece of art, these pictures should be required viewing.

Nature’s God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic, by Matthew Stewart
The Founding Fathers of the United States of America—both the famous and those forgotten by history—are often depicted according to the conveniences of modern political philosophies. But the question of what these brilliant men really believed, and where they got their ideas about freedom, equality, and political reality, is much more complex than the talking heads would have you believe. Familiar names like Jefferson or Franklin, and less-familiar names like Allen and Young—these men were radicals in just about every category of thought, from religion to economics to politics. Stewart helps readers take off the blinders and see the Founding Fathers for what they really were.

The Great Grisby: Two Thousand Years of Literary, Royal, Philosophical, and Artistic Dog Lovers and Their Exceptional Animals, by Mikita Brottman
Dogs—and animal companions in general—exert a powerful psychological pull on us. It’s often said you can predict certain aspects of a child’s future personality from the way she interacts with animals, and those of us who care for a pet know how much they affect us emotionally. Brottman starts off exploring her own relationship with her beloved dog, explores 26 famous dogs from history, literature, and other aspects of life, then turns her gaze on their owners. The result is a rich and powerful exploration of what it means to be human through the lens of the loyal, innocent dogs we allow into our lives. This is powerful stuff even cat people will appreciate!
Shop all Nonfiction >