(image of books) 50 Books That Might Make Me Smarter...Have You Read Them? #books that will make you smarter #books to expand your knowledge #books that will make you think #how to be smarter #books on the brain and how it works #books that stimulate your mind

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I almost renamed this post “50 books that will make you think.” I know my readers probably aren’t worried about how to be smarter…they’re really smart already! But in this list, you might find books to expand your knowledge, which we’re all interested in doing.

I usually take notes when I’m reading; it helps me retain what I learn. I love going back in my reading journals later and refreshing my memory.

This list isn’t in any particular order, though I’ve put some similar things next to each other. You can click on any of them to read reviews on Amazon. Everyone’s tastes are different, but I hope you find some interesting books that stimulate your mind!

 

(image of books with title) 50 Books That Might Make Me Smarter...Have You Read Them? #books that will make you smarter #books to expand your knowledge #books that will make you think #how to be smarter #books on the brain and how it works #books that stimulate your mind

 

Let’s start with science! Since I didn’t study much science in school, I’m always looking for books to increase knowledge in this area in particular.

1. Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time TravelMichio Kaku.

50 Books That Might Make Me Smarter...Have You Read Them? #books that will make you smarter #books to expand your knowledge #books that will make you think #how to be smarter #books on the brain and how it works #books that stimulate your mind

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This sounds amazing.

2Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, Matt Ridley

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER...Have you read them?

Fascinating topic, and reviewers say it’s very accessible.

3. Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Mad World, Mark Miodownik.

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER...Have you read them?

The review in Scientific American said, “Miodownik, a materials scientist, explains the history and science behind things such as paper, glass, chocolate and concrete with an infectious enthusiasm.”

 

4. The Tale of the Dueling Nuerosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery, Sam Kean.

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER...Have you read them?

I honestly can’t get enough books on the brain and how it works. I am particularly interested in reading about Cotard’s Syndrome, which makes people think they are dead. Good heavens.

5. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot.

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER...Have you read them?

I can’t believe I haven’t read this yet.

Okay, how about some novels?

6. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner.

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

It’s also ridiculous that I haven’t read this.

7. Play It As It Lays, Joan Didion

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

I have always loved this title. It’s such a great idiomatic phrase. 

8. Catch-22, Joseph Heller.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER 

9. Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart, Joyce Carol Oates.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

Joyce Carol Oates has written approximately ten thousand novels. How many have I read? Zero. ZERO. Shameful. I chose this one for the list because of the great title, from the devastating and brilliant poem “In the Desert,” by Stephen Crane. 

10. The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

What is this book, even? 

11. Don Quixote, Cervantes.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

When I was taking Spanish classes in college, I tried to read it in Spanish. Hahaha, that didn’t work. I bet I can find a fancy leather-bound version of this that’s not too expensive. 

12. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell.

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

The movie doesn’t sound so good, though. 

13. Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

I didn’t love Americanah, but I liked it a lot, and it stayed with me. It seems like everyone loved this one.

14. All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

The National World War I Museum is in my town, Kansas City. It’s a wonderful museum, and got me interested in reading more about this war. If you haven’t read Rebecca West’s novella, Return of the Soldier, I can’t recommend it enough–the writing is brilliant.

Moving on to some history books… 

15. The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

More about WWI. This book won the Pulitzer, and it’s on Modern Library’s list of 100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time

16. London, a Biography, by Peter Ackroyd.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

This is a big fat book that covers two thousand years. 

17. The Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History, S.C. Gwynne

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

This was a Pulitzer runner-up a while back. 

18. The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, Doris Kearns Goodwin

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER 

19. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

This was on my parents’ bookshelves when I was a kid. 

I also want to know what life is like in other countries right now, so I’ve picked a couple of titles with that in mind… 

20. The Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, by Evan Osnos

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

Osnos was the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker. This book won the National Book Award in nonfiction and was shortlisted for the Pulitzer. 

21. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

This bestseller won the National Book Award in 2012 and made everybody’s list of best books. 

A couple of biographies…

22. John Brown, W.E.B. DuBois

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER 

23. Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age, W. Bernard Carlson

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER 

Moving on to philosophy and such… 

24. Meditations, Marcus Aurelius, a newish translation by Gregory Hays

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

This is going to tell me how to be stoic, right? 

25. Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

I think I’ll take this one to the beach. 

26. Of Grammatology, Jacques Derrida.

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

One time I was at some type of symposium hosted by MIT Media Lab. They had seated me with erudite Europeans, and I had no idea what to say to them, so I asked them something about Derrida and they talked for about an hour. I’ve never read him, though. If reading about deconstruction gets in the way of my being able to write, I will set this book aside. 

27.The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

I strongly suspect this is overrated, but I’ve always been curious about it, and it sounds like a quick read. 

28. The Art of War, Sun Tzu.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

I think of this as a companion piece to The Prince, which may be completely inaccurate. 

A couple of religious texts…

29. The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Eknath Easwaran

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

A classic of Hinduism. 

30. The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

I have a couple of different copies somewhere in this house. 

Some ancient and epic tales…

31. The Arabian Nights, anonymous, translated by Muhsin Mahdi and Husain Haddawy

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

Sometimes titled 1001 Nights. I bet this is going to be awesome. 

32. The Iliad, Homer (a new translation by Peter Green)

100 Books That Might Make You Smarter

This is one of those classics that I sort of feel like I’ve read, but then again, I probably haven’t? 

33. Beowulf, translation by Seamus Heaney.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

Actually, I have read Beowulf before, but it was a long time ago, and it wasn’t Heaney’s translation. I like Heaney’s poetry. 

Part of being educated, especially for a writer, is being genre savvy. I haven’t read that much actual science fiction, so I put a few books on here…

34. Dawn, Octavia E. Butler

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

Dawn is the first book in Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy, and if I dig it, I’ll read the other two books.

 

35. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

More vintage scifi: the inspiration for the movie Blade Runner. 

36. Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

The first novel in the MaddAddam trilogy. The only other book I’ve read by Atwood was The Handmaid’s Tale, which was outstanding.

My knowledge of comics consists entirely of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman (I didn’t read all of them) and Daniel Clowes’s Ghost World. Last fall, I got the opportunity to have dinner with Scott McCloud and his wife, and I heard him give a fantastic talk the next day. Before this, I read his clear and profound book Understanding Comics, which has a lot to say about storytelling in general. So here are a couple of comics choices… 

 

37. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, Marjane Satrapi.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

I’ve heard only great things about this autobiography. 

38. Saga, Vol. 1-4, Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

Two of my good friends adore Saga.

Detective fiction is another genre I don’t know much about… 

39. The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

I saw this movie, but it was so long ago I barely remember it. 

40. Strong Poison, Dorothy L. Sayers.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

Okay, I definitely need a couple of thrillers on the list, because again, I haven’t read many. 

41. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan

50 BOOKS THAT MAY MAKE ME SMARTER

This is a 1915 spy thriller that Hitchcock made into a movie. 

42. In the Woods, Tana French.

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE YOU SMARTER

Here are a couple about economics. 

43. The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith.

100 Books That Might Make You Smarter

This often shows up on lists of important nonfiction books, and also on the list of books that Neil deGrasse Tyson thinks everybody ought to read. 

44. The Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism, Ha-Joon Chang

100 Books That Might Make You Smarter

The rest of these are miscellaneous nonfiction. 

45. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

46. Dominion: The Power of Man, The Suffering of Animals, and a Call to Mercy, Matthew Scully

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

Interestingly, the author is a conservative and a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush. I’m hoping this book will inspire me to become a vegan for real. I think it’s the most ethical path, given the way our food industry works, and I’ve tried and failed several times. 

47. The Empathy Exams, Leslie Jamison

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

My friend Kevin gave me a copy of this book, which was on the New York Times list of Notable Books for 2014. Thanks, Kevin! 

48. The Bad Guys Won, Jeff Pearlman.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

An online friend who lives in Ireland recommended this book about the 1986 Mets. It’s about the last thing I would have thought to read, so I think I should give it a try. 

49. Leave Your Mark: Land Your Dream Job. Kill It In Your Career. Rock Social Media, Aliza Licht

50 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

This is a new book by a successful fashion publicist. The title and cover design strike me as a bit obnoxious, but I bet I’ll love it. Because social media changes so quickly, I’ll probably read it soon.

(Update: since this post has gotten a lot of readers lately, I feel that I should not that this book was not useful to me. It still might be good for someone new to social media or just starting out in a professional career.) 

50. Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville.

100 BOOKS THAT MIGHT MAKE ME SMARTER

Yeah, I don’t even know what this is. 

~

Have you read some of these? Do you love them? Hate them? What’s on your list of books you want to read to become smarter? In the end, I think almost all books do.

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