What makes a book useful
Which useful books are equivalent to broad based web security recommendations? I value diversity and thoughtfulness, and feel that mindfully reading a diverse set of books is a good way to inoculate yourself from mindlessness. Based on my values, the books listed below are useful to everybody.
However, without knowing details about you, dear reader, it is hard to communicate my intentions and provide recommendations that fit your use of books. I don't know how to curate a list of useful fiction (except maybe, The Sneetches) without editorializing beyond what a diverse group of people might find useful. It isn't hard to find me on goodreads.
Quartz compiled 8 years of Bill Gates recommendations. Quartz's "math/science thinking" grouping on Gate's recommendations has quite a few "useful" books that provide tools for thinking. Many of Gate's other books have broadened my view (Sapiens), but I wouldn't universalize his recommendations as "useful" as per this page's definition of useful.
Books that have helped me improve me critical thinking skills
These are books that have helped me build new mental models with which to see the world. They are distinct from another set of instructive books — textbooks. Unlike an accounting/math/finance/black letter law textbook, which provide formulas into which information can be plugged, these books help compare different formulas and understand the trade offs that invariably occur when shifting between tool sets.
Idiomatically, these books have helped me learn how to fish instead of just providing me fish. I've become better at evaluating and communicating ideas to another person with the help of these books.
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt
- The book discusses the development of moral foundation theory.
- Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degradation.
- Here is a negative review of the book.
- Here is a reply from Haidt that tries to distinguish between the thoughtful criticisms and the false characterizations of the review.
- Haidt's summaries etc.
- I mis-remembered this book as including discussion of diversity/homogeneity preferences and how a bias towards either preference shapes moral reasoning. I can't recall where I got that idea, or perhaps I came up with the idea thanks in part to this book. If I came up with, then my creative critical efforts were definitely informed by reading Haidt's book. If a book leads me to create new models with which to view the world, it is useful.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn
Thinking fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
- Kahneman's work has lost some credibility because his results have not been easy to replicate and they contain statistical errors.
- Kahmenan points out issues with his early work in this post .
- Regardless, the book is compelling and useful for (i) the persuasive (if flawed) mental models it provides and because (ii) it presents an excellent opportunity to practice critical thinking; particularly, thinking about how what is useful and precise need not correlate with what is accurate.
- Here is an in depth summary from Erik Reads and Writes - Words in, Words out.
A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science by Barbara Oakley
- This book seems to be mis-titled for marketing purposes. The book provides tools to become a better calculator, and also discusses the tools it provides with sound reasoning. The book is about learning how to learn by understanding psychological models of how we learn (i.e. critical thinking).
- Like other useful books and unlike my prior sentence, this book is clear, well edited, and well organized. A good way to start a lesson plan could include mimicking this book's (i) organization (ii) use of different approaches to teaching a single concept, and (iii) interleaving of various concepts. The better your lesson plan, the less likely a student will need to pick up this book. Good for middle schoolers on up to people studying for the Bar or Boards.
How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg
- Explains concepts like multidimensional analysis and limits without dumbing down the material. Knowing how to solve a math problem which involves limits is not the same thing as understanding why mathematicians had to develop/discover limits. It follows that we may be able to solve a math problem without having learned how to think mathematically. The writer is a mathematician with an MFA who does a good job explaining the reasoning behind the number crunching.
This book is fascinating because of the subject matter, and it is useful because it helped me understand the creative research process of a Biology theorist. I feel that trying to understand the systemic thought process conveyed in this book has helped me understand other systems as well.
The Vital Question tries to establish a theory of life based on energy. What is life? To quote the book, "an electron looking for a place to land" and "an energy flux". Two useful models for life that approach biology from an energy perspective. Reading the book teaches how to think as much as it teaches facts.
Lane's book clearly lays out it thesis and walks an attentive but ignorant reader through developments in biochemistry. Instead of conclusory explanations of ideas, Lane walks through his scientific process.A lot of books give up on complexity for the sake of ease, but Lane's book explains something complicated clearly.
Writing conclusions is relatively easy. It is harder to write a book that discusses: How many different ways can we ask how life came to be? What counts as a good answer? How have others tried to answer the question? What are the limits of the possible alternative explanations? Are any explanations complimentary? In reading this book, I felt I got a chance to learn directly from someone that is good at thinking clearly about complicated things without giving up the complexity for the sake of ease.
I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Volume Three, 1923-1928