ybooks

Readers

Jonathan Haidt

American social psychologist at NYU Stern; author of The Happiness Hypothesis, The Righteous Mind and The Anxious Generation.

6 books on the record · 27 Jul 2010 – 27 Jul 2010 · @JonHaidt

The bar next to each date shows how long ago it was said: 6d is days, 4yr is years.

recommends it

Ambition by Gilbert Brim

Let's say that if the Buddha had been born in the Midwest of the US he would have written Brim's book. Brim has a Midwesterner's work ethic, and Americans moralise work quite a lot...so Brim says don't drop out of the game, play it, but play it so you don't get trapped, play it wisely, so that you get to enjoy the fruits of your labour.

on fivebooks.com · 27 Jul 2010

loved it

Dhammapada

The Dhammapada is one of the greatest psychological works ever written, and certainly one of the greatest before 1900. It is masterful in its understanding of the nature of consciousness, and in particular the way we are always striving and never satisfied.

on fivebooks.com · 27 Jul 2010

loved it

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

The Gilbert book is just so much fun to read. He's one of the funniest people, certainly in psychology – he's just endlessly witty, and reading it is like strapping yourself into a roller coaster.

on fivebooks.com · 27 Jul 2010

recommends it

The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky

The How of Happiness I would describe as the state of the art in evidence-based positive psychology. Sonja Lyubomirsky has done the best studies on how simple interventions, simple things you can do, on a daily or weekly basis, have measurable effects on your happiness. So if your goal is to actually raise your happiness level, then this is the best book to read – it has very concrete suggestions of what you can do.

on fivebooks.com · 27 Jul 2010

recommends it

The Paradox of Choice - Why More is Less by Barry Schwartz

That work was done especially by Barry Schwartz, in his book The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less. That is just such a good book...if I'd had six books, I would have included that one.

on fivebooks.com · 27 Jul 2010

Everything Jonathan Haidt recommends — not just books — on rcmnd →

That little bar

It says how long ago something was said, so you can tell last month from 2014 without doing the arithmetic. Full and green is recent; it drains and cools as the date gets older, and empties completely at about 6 years.

A striped bar means the date itself is an estimate — the source did not carry an exact one. An entry with no date at all gets no bar.