my mind on books

Lifetwo reviews Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar.

Vaughan at Mind Hacks is reading Muses, Madmen and Prophets, (on auditory hallucination) which he calls “poetic, wide-ranging and difficult to put down.”

Mind Hacks also pointed to a New York Times review of The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language by Christine Kenneally.

Issues in the Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science discusses ‘What is the self?’ focusing on Thomas Metzinger’s Being No One: The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity (Bradford Books)

Powered by ScribeFire.

While looking up neuroscience books for yesterday’s post, I came across the Cognitive Neuroscience Arena, a website for publishers Psychology Press, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, and Routledge. In addition to featured books and journals on cognitive neuroscience, the site has a resources section that lists useful cognitive neuroscience websites, blogs and blog posts on the topic.

The Cognitive Neuroscience Arena is one of a series of arenas on academic/applied psychology and mental health topics – including a Neuropsychology Arena, a Cognitive Psychology Arena, and many more.

Powered by ScribeFire.

This is the concluding part of a list I started a few days ago, of new & forthcoming books in the neurosciences, including neuroscience applied to fields such as religion, ethics or psychotherapy. A cumulative list will be placed in the sidebar.

Neuropsychotherapy: How the Neurosciences Inform Effective Psychotherapy by Klaus Grawe (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2007).

Neuroscience, Fourth Edition by Dale Purves (Sunderland, Mass.: Sinauer Associates, 2007). textbook

The Neuroscience of Psychological Therapies by Rowland W Folensbee (Cambridge [England] ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

Neuroscience of Rule-Guided Behavior ed. by Silvia A Bunge; Jonathan D Wallis (New York : Oxford University Press, 2007) forthcoming Aug 29

New Frontier of Religion and Science: Religious Experience, Neuroscience, and the Transcendent by John Hick (New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

On Willing Selves: Neoliberal Politics and the Challenge of Neuroscience ed. by Sabine Maasen; Barbara Sutter (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) forthcoming Oct 2

Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer (Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 2007) forthcoming Nov 1 (author’s blog, “The Frontal Cortex”)

More on neuroscience – recent & forthcoming books, part 2

“The big happy: six lies we tell ourselves about happiness” starts with “happiness can’t be taught,” citing the growing number of positive psychology courses in US universities. Books discussed include Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier by UC Davis professor Robert Emmons.

A few quick links …

1. Self-deception bibliography – part of the “Consciousness in the Natural World Project” from the University of Stirling. The bibliography & website in general don’t seem to have been updated for a few years but the bibliography has separate sections for articles and books, many with abstracts.

2. The introduction to ‘How to Read a Novel’ by John Sutherland is online at the Guardian, in which Sutherland touches on the interesting question “why we need so much narrative in our lives” and suggests that the rise of the novel in the 18th century “revolutionised” human consciousness….

3. For those who feel a need for narrative in the form of a “visionary thriller,” Discipline: A Novel by Paco Ahlgren sounds intriguing and has garnered lots of 5-star customer reviews at Amazon. (interview, website)