WhytoRead.com is dedicated to bringing you new and inspirational books for existing and new book lovers. Avid readers will already know the many benefits of reading books, one of which is to broaden your understanding of our world and life. By reading well-researched and accredited non-fiction books, you not only become smarter, you gain a better understanding of the world around you and how it came to be the way it is today.
This book list is dedicated to those books which help us to understand the world in which we live by giving us well researched and acclaimed information. These books will make you a better person and open your mind.
10 Books That Will Broaden Your Life Perspective
1. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies – Jared M. Diamond
(Featured in 10 Easy To Read Books That Make You Smarter)
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs, and Steel is a brilliant work answering the question of why the people’s of certain continents succeeded in invading other continents and conquering or displacing their people’s. This book sheds light on why the Europeans advanced so much quicker than the rest of the world.
2. The Lucifer Effect: Why Good People Do Evil Things – Philip Zimbardo
Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment from the early 70’s used college students for a study, making half of them prisoners and the other half guards. With instructions meant to polarize, the worst in human nature quickly came out, and the experiment had to be discontinued prematurely. This book is the breathtaking culmination of more than 30 years of careful research into the causes of evil. Dr Zimbardo, Stanford professor and former president of the American Psychological Association has devoted nearly all of his academic career to careful studies of the path between good and evil.
His dozens of research papers have documented how environmental and social forces can push even the best of us toward bad behavior. Even more importantly, he has documented the steps we can take as individuals and as societies to become more humane. His findings are widely respected within the academic community.
3. Tao Te Ching – Laozi
The name of the book is Book of The Way, or book of the Word. Next to the Bible, the most translated book in the world is the Tao Te Ching, the ancient Chinese Book of the Way. It lays the philosophical foundations for one of the world’s great wisdom traditions, Taoism. Written approximately 2,500 years ago by the legendary sage Lao Tzu, this classic continues to inspire readers today.
4. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions – Edwin A. Abbott
Flatland is the must-read book for anyone who is interested in getting a feel for the higher dimensions. The book is extraordinarily readable and even succeeds in getting its message across to people who are afraid of mathematics. Abbott’s charm lies in his ability to write simply and clearly about a topic that has its share of very unreachable, esoteric books.
5. Down and Out in Paris and London – George Orwell
This is George Orwells first book and its the true story of his time in Paris and London as a young man working in the worst jobs, with awful coworkers and terrible pay. It’s the tale of how he survived the horrible living conditions, emotionally and literally.
6. Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor E. Frankl
(Featured in 8 Books That Will Have A Profound Impact On Your Life)
This book consist of Victor Frankl’s account of his experiences in the concentration camp. He writes about the psychological effects of being completely dehumanized; of losing even your name, and becoming simply a number. Dr. Frankl discusses how people can find meaning to life in these conditions. He also describes how finding meaning in life, or a reason to live, was extraordinarily important to surviving the camp.
7. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid – Douglas R. Hofstadter
(Featured in 8 Non-Fiction Books That Will Blow Your Mind)
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid debates, beautifully, the question of consciousness and the possibility of artificial intelligence. It is a book that attempts to discover the true meaning of “self.”
8. The Selfish Gene – Richard Dawkins
The main idea in the Selfish Gene is to change your perspective of evolution: it is the genes that use bodies and organisms to reach their goals of reproduction.
9. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark – Carl Sagan
(Featured in 8 Books That Will Have A Profound Impact On Your Life)
Demons, UFO’s, the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot, fairies and the like are all investigated in this incredible non-fiction book by the late Carl Sagan. Pseudoscience, and those who perpetuate it, find their place in today’s society among those who want to believe in the impossible. This book challenges the reader to critically scrutinize information and to use critical thinking skills to make informed decisions based on scientific knowledge.
10. A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson
(Featured in 6 Must Read And Easy To Understand Science Books)
This book manages to explain the context of science in a way that is relevant to the average person, filled with one revelation after another.
