Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources books for adults

There are book threads for various age ranges, but I'd like to start one for adults (and those of adult mental age). This year I have read a few biographies -- "Steve Jobs" by Isaacson, "Gates ..." (1994) by Manes and Andrews, and "Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist" (1995) by Lowenstein. The Jobs biography was great, and the Gates biography while good left me looking for a book to bring me up to date on Gates and Microsoft. My 10yo, who likes to program, read the Jobs book twice and some of the Gates biography.

Lowenstein's biography gives an insight into how Buffett thought about business and investments but also his thoughts on politics and philanthropy. There are interesting slices of Midwestern Americana, for example the story of Rose Blumkin. Lowenstein's "When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management" (2001) is also good. "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life" (2009) by Alice Schroeder is a more recent and longer biography of Buffett that I may try next. Buffett is known for his essays on business and investing, which explain complicated topics to laymen, and I may read "Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders, 2013".

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

New Seeds of Contemplation.

Here are some of my favorites:

Neal Stephenson's Reamde which ties with The Baroque Cycle books for my favorites of his books

Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being

An oldie but goodie, Christopher Moore's Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

The Secret Life of Plants. Seriously.

I should point out that plants have a much more limited vocabulary than people.

Then it ought to be a quick read.

They speak in chemicals, so there's a lot of translation work.

How Not to be Wrong: The Hidden Maths of Everyday Life by Jordan Ellenberg.

Won't be a surprise to the maths among you but helping me keep up with DD. Quite funny in parts too.

Oh, why did that spam?

Jordan Ellenberg wrote How not to be wrong. It's subtitled The hidden maths of everyday life.

I liked this one for serious reading http://www.amazon.com/Life-Natural-History-First-Billion/dp/037570261X

But I also really enjoyed The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan (and it was a quick read). Farm City by Novella Carpenter was good too.

Apparently in mRNA:

http://news.discovery.com/earth/plants/new-plant-language-discovered-140814.htm

For light reading try The Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch who is a Whoovian author. You will see the similarities in his writing.

The Rosie Project has shades of Big Bang Theory. Be warned it is Australian but as far as I can remember there are no cringe worthy references to iconic landmarks or marsupials. Just an Aspergian looking for love in all the wrong places.

I will add Secret Life of Plants to my reading list.

Book that I found refreshing as it's written in a unique style is a novel by Helen de Witt entitled "The Last Samurai". It is more enjoyable as the story is about a HG/PG mom raising a PG son on her own in a foreign country and about his journey to attempt to find his biological father.

Funny, heartwarming, sad and endearing. And the writing style is so unique and different it just really appeals to me over and over again

Trauma Red: The Making of a Surgeon in War and in America's Cities, by Peter Rhee

The Martian, by Andy Weir.

Stephenson's books are all very lush, partially meaning they lack a good editor. "Reamde" is the weakest of the recent books.

"The Baroque Cycle" is very enjoyable... it is like Braudel's Capitalism cycle reimagined as a made for TV movie.

"Cryptonomicon" defines the 90's in a similar way to "Bonfire of the Vanities" for the 80's.

However, Stephenson's books all mix BIG Ideas with too much kinky sex for young audiences for my taste. Stross's "Accelerando" has the same problem as does anything Pynchon has ever written.

For sci-fi, my choice would be Gibson's "Pattern Recognition" which might be THE defining post 9/11 book. "Spook Country" and "Zero History" are weaker books in the triptych in that universe.

"Pattern Recognition" is clean and spare. However, one of the best books I have read in the last few years is "Wolf Hall". It is such a spare book... it is beautiful, like some eastern work of art. If you can catch when the protagonist and his widowed SIL end up sleeping together, your reading skills are at college level. "Bringing up the Bodies" is in a different style... I hope the third book is more like the first.

Thanks for the recommendation. I just finished this over the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I'd make a recommendation back, but most people seem turned off when I say the genre is "Italian epic poetry".
--S.F.

I'm glad you enjoyed it! You might also like this interview with the author.

Not me!

In that case, I highly recommend the Barbara Reynolds translation of Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso" (it comes in two parts).

Furioso is a continuation of Boiardo's "Orlando Innamorato". Both are excellent, but I fell in love (no pun intended) with Furioso first.

--S.F.

I'll definitely look into that. Short of learning Italian, an accurate translation is the next best thing.

Dr. Ben Carson, author of "Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story" (1996) and "America The Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great" (2013), has authored "One Nation: What We Can All Do To Save America's Future" (May 2014)

Freeman Dyson: By the Book
New York Times
April 16, 2015

Physicists and mathematician Freeman Dyson discusses his favorite books. Below is an excerpt where he talks about math and science books, but in the article he also mentions works of history, religion, and fiction. Other NYT "By the Book" columns are at http://www.nytimes.com/column/by-the-book . Dyson has written several books for a popular audience himself.

Wolf Hall is on my list. I'm rereading Open Veins of Latin America.

I am a book re-reader. Over the years, I can't count the number of times I've re-read the following. Some are junky but fun (and yes - I know Hunger Games was not really intended as an "adult" book). One is very sad.

Interesting - they are all coming of age stories that involve what appear to be highly gifted children/young adults. As I raise my PG son, these take on new and evolving meanings for me.

Pride and Prejudice
Ender's Game
Little Women
Hunger Games
The God of Animals (very sad)
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

I guess my favorites are a little pedestrian. But they make me happy - old friends. P&P is my go-to answer for "the one book I'd want if lost on a deserted island."

Some of my particular favorites: Atlas of Love, Time Traveler's Wife, The Fountainhead, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Flowers for Algernon, Mr. Vertigo, Dresden Files, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, The Chronicles of Amber...

And in case anyone is interested...sci-fi/fantasy recommendations from my husband (he was a bit overzealous!):
Andy Weir - The Martian
Dan Simmons - Hyperion Cantos; Ilium/Olympos saga
Steven Brust - Dragaeran novels/Khaavren Romances
Philip K. Dick - anything, really
Dave Duncan - Tales of the King's Blades
David Eddings - The Belgariad & The Mallorean
William Gibson - anything
Weis & Hickman - The Death Gate Cycle
Tom Holt - anything
Guy Gavriel Kay - The Fionavar Tapestry
Patricia McKillip - anything, especially the Riddlemaster of Hed
L.E. Modesitt - The Saga of Recluce
Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon
Garth Nix - The Old Kingdom novels
Sheri S. Tepper - anything

Godel, Escher,Bach - An eternal golden braid
By Douglas Hofstadter

Is definitely one of the best and thought provoking books that I have ever read - probably a bit date nowadays but still worth reading IMO

It was the book that got me into AI

Been meaning for ages to pull Godel, Escher, Bach out of the depths for DS - Thanks for reminding me I owe myself a shot at it first!

You would be kindred spirits with my dd14 well except for Hunger Games!). She feels the same about P&P.

My family does not, in general terms, understand my obsession with Umberto Eco. Pretty much any of Eco's novels.

I can live with that. DD at least didn't mock me for wanting my photo taken with the pendulum-- no, the Foucault pendulum, really-- while we were in Paris. So there is that.
I deeply regret not buying that French translation of Foucault's Pendulum from a Left Bank book stall, however.

I don't generally re-read much of anything, because I'm a narrative person, and my memory for narrative detail is simply too good, so the "story" is more or less ruined for me after the first read, unless I read it fast-fast-fast and while tired. There are exceptions to that, but those are the books that I love and truly treasure. I'm kind of promiscuous in my reading tastes, but there are some things that I'd read again and again just for the delight of it.

Some books that I love, find haunt me, or have spoken to me at various times in my life;

Jonathon Livingston Seagull-- really, a very powerful metaphor for life as an HG+ person (if one chooses to read it that way). One of my most prized possessions is a signed first edition that was a gift from my father-- it's a lovely memento of a perfect rainy day spent in a rare book crawl with him-- and one of the last of (many) such memories, when I was a teen.

Pillars of the Earth. Love this book-- love the rich and accurate FEEL of the character development, and the grimy, sort of desperate THINKING and actions of those characters. Both horrifying and fascinating. Made me think very deeply about how brutish and traumatic life used to be for all but a tiny minority of human beings, and inspired my wonder at the collection of world heritage sites and cultural treasures that exist in spite of that fact. Still amazing after all this time. I can't say that I recommend the "sequel" which I wasted 14hr of my life reading with great eagerness... I cared not one bit about ANY of the characters in that book, and was sorry to have wasted the 1000 pages-- something that I rarely, if ever, have to say about any book. LOL.

Another all-time favorite is Helprin's epic fantasy, The Winter's Tale. Love that book. It's not a great story, not a great work of prose (by any means), not great in ANY way-- but it was great for me when I first encountered it as a teen a bit older than my daughter. It was, for me, the right book at the right time. I think that The Night Circus reminded me somehow of this book-- I enjoyed that novel very much, and so did DD.

I also love Pushkin, Kafka, and Tao Te Ching, but only in lovely translations that preserve sense (and, I suppose, sensibility).

The Making of the Atomic Bomb, All the President's Men, and A Beautiful Mind all speak to me.

I like poetry. My favorite modern poet is probably Billy Collins, but in terms of older poetry, I have a deep appreciation for Langston Hughes (my daughter is the one who hooked me!!) and Riley (because of my dad's fondness for him).

I also return fairly often to my out-of-print anthologies of Ray Bradbury's short stories, and his magnificent Dandelion Wine. I know that it's not strictly an "adult" novel, but it is remarkable nonetheless.

Another "children's" author that I adore is George MacDonald. Oh, and Betty MacDonald's Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books, because they are just a delight in every possible way.


My desert island author is probably Shakespeare, though. There is just so much gravity and compassion about human nature and the ways that human beings relate to, or interact with, others. I can't think of another playwright that seems to grasp and convey both light and dark so well.

I really enjoyed Foucault's Pendulum too and Baudolino too.

Mary Renault's Persian Boy and the Patrick O'Brien Jack Aubrey/Maturin were some of my favourite historical fiction.

Anything by Studs Terkel is basically de rigeur for anyone interested in 20th century us social history.

Both Steinbeck and George Orwell,

Also cookery books by Jane Grigson - her delightfully pithy prose has been demonstrated to lower my blood pressure.

Anything by Terry Pratchett - although reading his books now just fills me with melancholy given his tragic disease and death.

Two of my favorites are the dystopian book This Perfect Day by Ira Levin, and the post apocalyptic Malevil by Robert Merle.

Reading of dystopias reminded me of a new book, copyright 2015, by Ben Carson, MD (whose early life, some might say, was a dystopia). Having overcome many obstacles, Ben Carson became a world-renown surgeon and is now a well-respected author, often encouraging others to avail themselves of opportunities to pull themselves up by the bootstraps.

Written for young adults (but seemingly helpful for anyone needing affirmation while they work to turn their life around, step it up a notch, or make a big decision), You Have a Brain: A Teen's Guide to T.H.I.N.K. B.I.G. is a new best seller.
This book is based on his 1996 work, Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

Based on discussion in another thread, Ruby K. Payne's book Crossing the Tracks for Love may be of interest. Amazon offers a "Look Inside" feature so prospective customers can glimpse the flavor of the book prior to making their purchase decision. Several of Ms. Payne's other works also appear as related/recommended on the Amazon page.

Here is a list of influential books in the social sciences, although not necessarily good ones. Students planning to major in the social sciences could find it interesting.

What are the most cited books in the social sciences?
by Tyler Cowen
May 18, 2016

Just saying it because no one else has so far:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

One of the best non-fiction books of the last decade IMO.

It is good to see The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks added to this thread of books for adults. This is an important work, contemplating ethics in health care and research, among other issues.

This book has been recommended on other threads, including:
- Book recommendations: Appropriate adult fiction, where the poster mentioned that this book was non-fiction
- Books for 13 yr old

I see a work by Ruby Payne listed above. I've successfully used Ms.Payne's "A Framework for Understanding Poverty" to enhance my understanding of middle class thinking and norms--kind of reverse engineering, as I didn't grow up in the kind of middle class that is her baseline; and I'm too much of a nerd to believe, for instance, that talking loudly is inherently bad. It helped me make some sense out of certain puzzling behaviors on the part of middle-class authority figures that had come across as patronizing, disloyal, arbitrary, rigid and self-serving. I could see them as more functional when the framework within which they originate was set against both poverty and wealth frameworks.

The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong
by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull
Copyright 1969, 2008, 2009
HarperCollins Paperback, 2011

This book provides descriptions of widespread incompetence throughout society, and analysis of why incompetence tends to be rewarded... while raising the bar tends to be discouraged/punished. If you may have witnessed this phenomenon IRL, reading this book can be rather affirming.

Confucius Never Said, by Helen Raleigh (2014) is a MUST-READ for those interested in an eye-opening book on cultures, society, sacrifice, values, immigration, freedom, opportunity, success, appreciation, families, the American Dream, and more.

"A four-generation family journey from repression and poverty to freedom and prosperity."
The concept of Americans throwing their freedom away reminds me of this old post discussing the irony of the 2 meanings of FREE (as they are at odds with each other): free meaning without cost at point of service -vs- free meaning having personal liberty. It seems that many people are interested in giving up BEING free in order to GET something for free.


This book encourages thinking and connecting the dots.
- In light of this passage, consider where we are headed with the data collection on students in US public schools, ushered in by Common Core.
- data collection is used to force equal outcomes
- The forced uniformity reminds me of this old post on collectivism.

The satire, The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis (1941), and its prequel, Screwtape Proposes a Toast (1959).

The Saturday Evening Post offers a free download of the Toast, published nearly 60 years ago. In proposing his toast, the character Screwtape provides prognosticator's insight into how changes in society and especially education may help bring about the downfall of humanity. A few brief excerpts follow:
* reminds me of the article small poppies, in which the author saw flowers which towered over others being topped off, leaving a bare stalk, to give the impression, when viewed from a distance, of all flowers growing to a uniform height.

The forced uniformity reminds me of this old post on collectivism.

UNDOCTORED, by William Davis, MD copyright 2017

Just some of my favourite non-fiction:

- A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (laugh out loud funny)

- A Short History of Nearly Everything (for anyone NOT with a science background mostly, but very funny with tons of anecdotes)

- The Brain that Changes Itself (on neuroplasticity)

- Life and Death in Shanghai (political prisoner in the Cultural Revolution)

- The Walmart Effect

- The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz (why too much choice can be a bad thing)

- Guns, Germs and Steel

- Collapse (lesser known but amazing by Jared Diamond about how and why societies collapse)

- Bitter Chocolate by Carol Off (about the not so lovely history of the chocolate industry)

- The Brain that Changes Itself

- My Stroke of Insight

- Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin

- Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin

I could add more but I'll stop here for now!

I haven't read it yet myself, but I bought a book for my mother on the strength of a few reviews, that might be a good one for people here: Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II

I knew about the people at Bletchley Park in the UK, but I had no idea there were women doing similar things in the US.

Love this recommendation, I'm going to pick it up. And that reminds me of a similar (and fascinating) read:

The Code Book by Simon Singh

Or of Livy's account of King Tarquin cutting down the tall poppies.

Looks interesting. Amazon link.

‘In Defense of Troublemakers’ Review: Rocking the Boat
Wall Street Journal
By Philip Delves Broughton
May 9, 2018 6:40 p.m. ET

Viktor Frankl- "Man's Search for Meaning"

This short read is divided between Frankl's personal experience as a psychiatrist/neurologist interned at Auschwitz, and the meaning-based school of psychiatry he spawned from it which was inspired by the ability of some concentration camp survivors to maintain hope and humanity.

It's a fascinating book that should be mandatory reading for passage into adulthood.

More books for adults:

Digital Minimalism (2019) by Cal Newport, author of Deep Work (2016), How to be a High School Superstar (2010), and several other books on defining and achieving success. Related thread here.

Everyday Millionaires (2019) by Chris Hogan. Related thread here.

Gifted Workers: Hitting the target by Noks Nauta. There aren't a lot of books that deal with gifted adult issues. This is a nice one that goes through about 11 case studies presenting the issues experienced, reflection, and proposed solution with followup.

Passion-Driven Education: How to Use Your Child's Interests to Ignite a Lifelong Love of Learning, by Connor Boyack (2016)
with foreword by John Taylor Gatto, author of
Weapons of Mass Instruction (2010)
and
Dumbing Us Down - 25th Anniversary Edition: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (2017)
and
The Underground History of American Education, Volume I: An Intimate Investigation Into the Prison of Modern Schooling (2017)

Hidden Figures: The American Dream ...n the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

The NASA Archives. 60 Years in Space
This is a heavy, expensive coffee table book but it's worth it.

I thought of a few more books:

Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Spinning Silver also by Naomi Novik

Anything by Neil Gaiman. He did a nonfiction book I really like called The View From the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction
Gaiman is a strong supported of libraries and I have a library science degree and use the library all the time. He has a lot of interesting things to say.

He is friends with the musician Tori Amos. Which brings me to my next book:
Comic Book Tattoo: Tales Inspired by Tori Amos This was a joint project by Gaiman, Amos, and the artists who illustrated her songs.

An important slice of history:

Color, Communism, and Common Sense (1958), is a crucial artifact. Written by a Black man, ex-Communist Manning Johnson, this book provides historical context, primary source documents, and insight as to the seeds sown for the development of today's critical race theory.
A brief excerpt of Chapter 7 follows.
Related:
Website of Manning Johnson (1908-1959), which provides free online access to his 1958 whistleblowing book as a 2009 Web Version, and also presents his Farewell Address (36:18), and a transcript of the Farewell Address, in which Manning Johnson discusses many issues which are still at the forefront and unfolding as news headlines today, more than 60 years later.

Reprints of the 1958 edition of Manning Johnson's book are also available for purchase at book stores and online at Amazon.

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UPDATE: As of March 2022, Manning Johnson's website is no longer active, however it has been archived many times over the years.
1) Read his book online, FREE:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220205041255/http://manningjohnson.org/book/CCCS_Contents.html
Reprints of his book are also widely available.

2) Listen to his farewell address posted online:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220206095915/http://manningjohnson.org/speech/Manning_Johnson--Farewell_Address-32k.mp3 (36:18)

3) Follow along with transcript of Manning Johnson's "Farewell Address"
https://web.archive.org/web/20210731144351/http://www.manningjohnson.org/speech/transcript.html
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The Education of Children
Alfred Adler, 1930

Although not perfect, very insightful...

Three related books, spanning decades of research:
1) 1969 - The Impact of College on Students, Feldman and Newcomb
2) 1991 - How College Affects Students: Findings and Insights From Twenty Years of Research, by Ernest T. Pascarella and Patrick T. Terenzini
3) 2005 - How College Affects Students, Volume 2: A Third Decade of Research, by Ernest T. Pascarella and Patrick T. Terenzini

One of many important concepts discussed is "internal locus of control" - the sense of being self-directed, self determining, responsible, owning one's education.

Related links:
- College grade inflation.
- University grade inflation.
- Do campus amenities such as lazy rivers and concierge services:
. . .- change the definition and expectations of "the college experience,"
. . .- distract from a focus on education,
. . .- delay maturation,
. . .- detract from a sense of frugal DIY self-sufficiency,
. . .- thwart the development of "internal locus of control"...?

A book which may be interesting to all families, as informed consumers of health care services:
Basic & Clinical Pharmacology, 15th Edition (2021)
by Bertram G. Katzung and Todd W. Vanderah
McGraw Hill

Link - https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Clinical-Pharmacology-Bertram-Katzung/dp/126045231X/

empleat, thank you - Third Factor looks like a great resource!

I'll go with two of my favourites, and some recent discoveries:

One book that has had a profound impact on my worldview at the time is Stiller, which, as a novel, explores how identities are not only constructed by ourselves, but also those around us.

I have also enjoyed many books by Milan Kundera, who might be known to many of you. Identity was a particularly interesting one to me, besides his probably most famous one, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. His novels explore many topics ranging from love relationships, philosophy, and the political context of the Cold War, through the lens of the situation in the Czech republic.

Finally, Waiting for Bojangles is a recent novel, very original and touching take on the fine line between eccentricity, and mental illness (with very inventive language!). No idea though, how well the translation into English went.

On a the non-fiction side, Eva Illouz has interesting takes on emotionality in times of capitalism, and the influence of psychology/psychotherapy on the modern self.

With a nod to an old forum post, http://giftedissues.davidsongifted...._backstory_with_a_side_o.html#Post239245, here are a few books, mentioned in an article which that old forum post links to... and another article linked from that.

Here's a good read, and parents may wish to share this with their children as well.

Black History 1619-2019
An Illustrated and Documented African American History
by Sandra K. Yocum and Frances Presley Rice
(2021)
https://www.amazon.com/Black-History-1619-2019-Illustrated-African-American/dp/1557789444/

Interesting. Insightful. Controversial.

The authors also have a website: Yocum African American History Association (YAAHA): yocumblackhistory.org .
Webpages include:
- Lesson Plans,
- Resources,
- guest Blog posts, and
- more information About the authors and founders of YAAHA.

"Person of Interest" by J. Warner Wallace (2021)
link to book on amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Person-Interest-Jesus-Matters-Rejects/dp/0310111277/

related YouTube videos - https://www.youtube.com/c/ColdCaseChristianitywithJWarnerWallace

book website - https://personofinterestbook.com/

"How to Make Yourself Miserable" by Dan Greenburg and Marcia Jacobs (1966)

Dan Greenburg is a humorous satirist.

Summarizer, powered by Brave AI, describes the book this way:

First and second printings of this humorous, insightful vintage book are found listed on resale websites (such as abe books, amazon, ebay, etsy, thriftbooks).

For adults seeking engaging reads, explore genres like mystery, science fiction, and self-help.