I love books not only because they are intended to be well-reasoned, extensively detailed explorations of an author's ideas, but also because each book presents a working model of a unique human mind and a mental perspective that somewhat differs from and is external to my own. The more we read, and the more broadly we read, the broader the variety of different minds, experiences, perspectives, and information we have with which to both augment and test our own first-hand experiences of life. We learn to listen; to hear; to think critically; to agree; to disagree; to discuss; to debate; to present counter arguments; to be with others of sameness and difference in a way that benefits positive growth. We learn that externally we belong in some ways and places and not in others and to feel comfortable and right with that. More importantly, we learn that we belong internally and always have our own thoughts and opinions as well as a place within to call our own. As critical thinkers and perceivers we are not condemned to pathological alienation from ourselves, nor from the Other and the External. The critical thinker is connected to Other, the External, by will to understanding and meaning and allows Other to be in its own power without voiding his own. Through reading, we learn as much about others as we do about ourselves. We learn that the power of the human mind is incredibly fascinating, and that with that kind of power inside and outside of us in ourselves and others, we have little reason to ever complain that we are bored or powerless.

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan
Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, by Carl Sagan
Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millenium, by Carl Sagan
Alpha Beta: How 26 Letters Shaped the Western World, by John Mann
Mythic Past: Biblical Archeology and the Myth of Israel, by Thomas L. Thompson
Never Have Your Dog Stuffed and Other Things I've Learned, by Alan Alda
The Ethnic Myth, by Stephen Steinberg
Obedience to Authority, by Stanley Milgram
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, by Steven Pinker
Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence, by Rollo May
Argument of Laughter, by D.H. Munro
Media Virus: Hidden Agendas in Popular Culture, by Douglas Rushkoff
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce
The Open Mind (sensory dominance patterns), by Dawna Markova
Mirrors Of Man in Existentialism, by Nathan A. Scott, Jr.
Finite and Infinite Games, by James P. Carse
Laughing at Nothing: Humor as a Response to Nihilism, by John Marmysz
A Dictionary of Political Thought, by Roger Scruton
The Dictionary of Global Culture, edited by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols, by Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant
The Culture of Narcissism, by Christopher Lasch
Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals, by Saul D. Alinsky
Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf, by Oliver Sacks
In the Beginnings: Early Man and his Gods, by H.R. Hays
The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently and Why, by Richard E. Nisbett
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, by Neil Postman
Time in History: Views of Time from Prehistory to the Present Day, by G.J. Whitrow
The Expanding Circle: Ethics and Sociobiology, by Peter Singer
Control Theory, by William Glasser
Narcissism, by Alexander Lowen
The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell
The Third Force, by Frank Goble
Hatred: The Psychological Descent into Violence, by Willard Gaylin
Atheism: A Reader, Edited by S.T. Joshi
Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy, by Susan Neiman
Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl
The Virtue of Selfishness, by Ayn Rand
Atheism: The Case Against God, by George H. Smith
Why We Hate, by Jack Levin & Gordana Rabrenovic
The End of Faith, by Sam Harris
The Anatomy of Motive, by John Douglas & Mark Olshaker
Inside the Criminal Mind, by Stanton E. Samenow
Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic, by James Gilligan
Why They Kill, by Richard Rhodes
Why I am Not A Christian, by Bertrand Russell
The Will to Power, by Friedrich Nietzsche
Culture and Value, by Ludwig Wittgenstein
Genome, by Matt Ridley
Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion, by Carol Tavris
The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, by Peter L. Berger
Understanding Media: Extensions of Man, by Marshall McLuhan
The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape, by James Howard Kunstler
Neurotic Styles, by David Shapiro
Psychotherapy of Neurotic Charactar, by David Shapiro
Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics, by Eric Fromm
The Roving Mind, by Issac Asimov
Atom: Journey Across the Subatomic Cosmos, by Issac Asimov
Escape From Freedom, by Eric Fromm
Integrity, by Stephen L. Carter
Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, by Francis Fukuyama
Asimov's Guide to the Bible, by Issac Asimov
Asimov's Chronology Of the World, by Issac Asimov
The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Western Thought, by Thomas S. Kuhn
The Concept of Time, by Martin Heidegger
Understanding Human Nature, by Alfred P. Adler
The Science of Living, by Alfred Adler
The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, by Irvin D. Yalom
Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, by Jerry Mander
Teaching as a Subversive Activity, by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner
Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, by Sherry Turkle
Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, by Sissela Bok
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, by Howard Rheingold
Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future, by Neil Postman
The Image of the City, by Kevin Lynch
Dynamics of Charactar: Self-regulation in Psychopathology, by David Shapiro
The Varnished Truth: Truth Telling and Deceiving in Ordinary Life, by David Nyberg
Shows About Nothing: Nihilism in Popular Culture from The Exorcist to Seinfeld, by Thomas S. Hibbs
Civility, by Stephen L. Carter
The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence, by Carl Sagan
The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion, by Stephen L. Carter
The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School, by Neil Postman
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, by Neil Postman
Hacker Culture, by Douglas Thomas
What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, by James Paul Gee
Mind Control, World Control: The Encyclopedia of Mind Control, by Jim Keith
The Mis-Education of the Negro, by Carter G. Woodson
The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier, by Howard Rheingold
Being and Time, by Martin Heidegger
The Dissent of the Governed: A Meditation on Law, Religion, and Loyalty, by Stephen L. Carter
God, Freedom, and Evil, by Alvin C. Platinga
The Silent Language, by Edward T. Hall
How to Watch the TV News, by Neil Postman
The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, by Erich Fromm
Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective, by Peter L. Berger
The Social Construction of Reality, by Peter L. Berger
The Portable Hannah Arendt, edited by Peter Baehr
Lucretious on the Nature of the Universe
Marcus Aurelius to Himself (The Meditations), Marcus Aurelius
Enchiridion, (Epictetus)
The Existentialists, by James Collins
Hunting Humans, by Elliot Leyton
The Jewish People in America, by Henry L. Feingold
Lectures of Col. R.G. Ingersol, Complete, Rhodes and McClure Pub 1897
The Origins of Totalitarianism, by Hannah Arendt
The Human Condition, by Hannah Arendt
Eichmann in Jerusalem, by Hannah Arendt
Civilisation: A Personal View, by Kenneth Clark
Theory of Religion, by Georges Bataille
Marriage & Morals, by Bertrand Russell
The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, by Bruno Bettelheim
The Theory of the Leisure Class, by Thorsten Veblen
Russell on Religion: Selections from the Writings of Bertrand Russell, edited by Louis Greenspan and Stefan Andersson
And the Sea is Never Full, Memoirs 1969-, by Elie Wiesel
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by Max Weber
The Nature of Prejudice, by Gordon Allport
Respect in a World of Inequality, by Richard Sennett
Race and Culture, by Tomas Sowell
Whose Keeper: The Social Science of Moral Obligation, by Alan Wolfe
The Gift of Fear, by Gavin De Becker
Control Theory in the Classroom, by William Glasser
Jealousy, by Nancy Friday
Ethics Without God, by Kai Nielson
The Roots of the Self, by Robert Ornstein
The Conquest of Happiness, by Bertrand Russell
Carnival Culture: The Trashing of Taste in America, by James B. Twitchell
Future Shock, by Albert Toffler
On Human Nature, by Edward O. Wilson
The Sadomasochism of Everyday Life, by John Munder Ross
Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl
The Will to Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl
Evil: A Primer:A History of a Bad Idea From Beelzebub to Bin Laden, by William Hart
The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism From A to Z, edited by Harry Binswanger
Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, by Leonard Peikoff
The Sociological Imagination, by C. Wright Mills
The Power Elite, by C. Wright Mills
White Collar: The American Middle Classes, by C. Wright Mills
Revolt of the Elites, by Christopher Lasch
The Hero's Journey, by Joseph Campbell
Letters from a Stoic, by Seneca
My Mother My Self, by Nancy Friday
Our Looks, Our Lives: Sex, Beauty, Power, and the Need to Be Seen, by Nancy Friday
Men in Love (male sexual fantasies), by Nancy Friday
The Transparent Self, by Sidney M. Jourard
Simulations of God, by John C. Lilly
A Sourcebook on Child Sexual Abuse, edited by David Finkelhor
Intimacy and Solitude: Balancing Closeness and Independence, by Stephanie Dowrick
Our Inner Conflicts, by Karen Horney
The Disappearance of Childhood, by Neil Postman
Man Alone: Alienation in Modern Society, edited by Eric and Mary Josephson
The Mad, The Bad, and The Innocent, by Barbara R. Kirwin
Whoever Fights Monsters, by Robert K, Ressler & Tom Shachtman
Kids Who Kill, by Charles Patrick Ewing
Journey Into Darkness, by John Douglas & Mark Olshaker
Without Conscience, The Disturbing World of Psychopaths Among Us, by Robert D. Hare
Psychiatric Dictionary, by Leland E. Hinsie, M.D. and Robert J. Campbell, M.D.
Critical Thinking, by Brooke Noel Moore and Richard Parker
The Puritan Dilemma: The story of John Winthrop, by Edmund S. Morgan
Serial Killers: The Insatiable Passion, by David Lester
Serial Murderers and Their Victims, by Eric W. Hickey
Patterns in Criminal Homicide, by Marvin E. Wolfgang
Crime in a Free Society, Edited by Robert W. Winslow
Juvenile Delinquency: Visionary Approaches, by Dennis A, Romig, Charles C. Cleland, and Laurie J. Romig
The Fiery Cross: The Klu Klux Klan in America, by Wyn Craig Wade
The Gestalts of War, by Sue Mansfield
Suicide and Mass Suicide, by Joost A.M. Meerloo
The Suicidal Mind, by Edwin S. Shneidman
Why Suicide, by Eric Marcus
Controlling People, by Patricia Evans
I Hate You, Don't Leave Me: Understanding The Borderline Personality, by Jerold J. Kreisman & Hal Straus
The Beauty Myth, by Naomi Wolf
Women's Reality, by Anne Wilson Schaef
Silencing the Self, by Dana Crowley Jack
The Power of Place, by Winfred Gallagher
Gendered Relationships, Edited by Julia T. Wood
Toward a Psychology of Being, by Abraham Maslow
Collective Search for Identity, by Orrin E. Klapp
Intimacy, by Shirley Gehrke Luthman
The True Believer, by Eric Hoffer
The Ordeal of Change, by Eric Hoffer
The Passionate State of Mind, by Eric Hoffer
Biotechnology from A to Z, by William Bains
Parallel Universes: The Search for Other Worlds, by Fred Alan Wolf
Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book About Everything and Nothing, by William Irwin
A Brief History of Time, by Stephen W. Hawking
Women's Moods, by Deborah Sichel & Jeanne Watson Driscoll
On Tickling, Kissing, and Being Bored: Psychoanalytic Essafys on the Unexamined Life, by Adam Phillips
Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War, by judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, and William Broad
With Good Reason: An Introduction to Informal Fallacies, by S. Morris Engel
Sleep Thieves, by Stanley Coren
The Left-Hander Syndrome, by Stanley Coren
Your Natural Gifts, by Margaret Broadley
Inside the Brain, by Ronald Kotulak
Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville
Addictive Thinking, by Abraham J. Twerski
The Addictive Personality, by Craig Nakken
The Addictive Organization, by Anne Wilson Schaef & Dianne Fassel
Signals, by Alan Pease
An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy, by John Mansley Robinson
The Commercialization of Intimate Life, by Arlie Russell Hothschild
The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling, by Arlie Russell Hothschild
Media Worlds in The Postjournalism Era, by David P. Altheide and Robert P. Snow
Personality Type: An Owner's Manual, by Lenore Thomson
Thucydides: On Justice, Power, and Human Nature, Translated by Paul Woodruff
Black and White Styles in Conflict, by Thomas Kochman
Speech and Man, by Charles T. Brown and Charles Van Riper
Created Equal: Why Gay Rights Matter to America, by Michael Nava and Robert Dawidoff
Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type, by Isabel Briggs Meyers & Peter B. Meyers
The Survivor Personality, by Al Siebert
The Power of Empathy, by Arthur P. Ciaramicoli & Katherine Ketcham
The Psychology of Self-Esteem, by Nathaniel Branden
The Psychology of Romantic Love, by Nathaniel Branden
Honoring The Self, by Nathaniel Branden
The Disowned Self, by Nathaniel Branden
The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, by Nathaniel Branden
God's Name in Vain, by Stephen L. Carter
The Evidential Argument from Evil, edited by Daniel Howard-Snyder
The Battle for God, by Karen Armstrong
Religion vs. Television: Competitors in Cultural Context, by Jay Newman
Instant Rapport, by Michael Brooks
A User's Guide to the Brain, by John J. Ratey
The Working Brain, by A.R. Luria
Change Your Brain, Change Your Life (SPEC scan analysis in psychotherapy), by Daniel G. Amen
The 3-Pound Universe, by Judith Hooper & Dick Teresi
It's all in Your Head: Remarkable Facts About the Human Mind by, Jean Stine & Camden Benares
Mein Kamph, by Adolph Hitler
Boundaries: Where You End and I Begin, by Anne Katherine
Type Talk, by Otto Kroeger & Janet M. Thuesen
LifeTypes, by Sandra Krebs Hirsh & Jean Kummerow
The Right Mind, by Robert Ornstein
Mean Genes, by Terry Burnham & Jay Phelan
The Demon Lover: The Roots of Terrorism, by Robin Morgan
Experience and Behavior, by Peter McKellar
The New Personality Self-Portrait, by John M. Oldham & Lois B. Morris
Brain Sex, by Anne Moir & David Jessel
The Brain Book, by Peter Russell
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, by Robert B. Cialdini
The Art of Intimacy, by Thomas Patrick Malone & Patrick Thomas Malone
Tune Your Brain, by Elizabeth Miles
The Psychology of the Internet, by Patricia Wallace
Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty, by Roy F. Baumeister
The Science of Culture, by Leslie A. White
Brainstyles, by Marlane Miller
The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Green & Joost Elfers
Philosophy of Law: An Introduction to Jurisprudence, by Jeffrie G. Murphy & Jules L. Coleman
The Biology of Violence, by Debra Niehoff
In a Different Voice, by Carol Gilligan
Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman
Myths To Live By, by Joseph Campbell
The Power of Myth, by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers
Reflection on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion, selected And edited by Diane K. Osbon
Before It's Too Late, by Stanton E. Samenow
Reading Between the Lines (Handrwriting analysis), by P. Scott Hollander
Reading People, by Jo-Ellen Dimtitrius & Mark Mazzarella
Mindworks (NLP), by Anne Linden
All Too Human: A Political Education, by George Stephanopoulos
The Moral Intelligence of Children, by Robert Coles
An Introduction to Ancient Philosophy, by A.H. Armstrong
Beyond Good and Evil, by Frederich Nietzsche
The Mind, by Anthony Smith
The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine
Structural Visualization, by Johnson O'Connor
The Outsider, by Colin Wilson
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, by William  L. Shirer
The Concept of Law, by H.L.A. Hart
The Leopard's Spots: Scientific Attitudes Toward Race in America 1815-59, by William Stanton
Civilization and Its Discontents, by Sigmund Freud
The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South, by Kenneth M. Stamp
Counseling Adults in Transition: Linking Practice with Theory, by Nancy K. Schlossberg
The Clinical Interview Using DSM-IV-Tr Volume 1: Fundamentals, by Ekkehard Othmer, M.D., Ph.D., and Sieglinde C. Othmer, Ph.D.
The Clinical Interview Using DSM-IV-TR Volume 2: The Difficult Patient, by Ekkehard Othmer, M.D., Ph.D., and Sieglinde C. Othmer,
Ph.D.
The Clinical Interview Using DSM-III-R, by Ekkehard Othmer, M.D., Ph.D., and Sieglinde C. Othmer, Ph.D.
The Helping Interview, by Alfred Benjamin
Games People Play, by Eric Berne
The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Listening to Prozac, by Peter D. Kramer
People of the Lie, by M. Scott Peck
Philosophical Investigations, by Ludwig Wittgenstein
Man and His Symbols, by Carl Jung
A Short History of Political Philosophy, by Gaetano Mosca
The Nature of The Universe, by Lucretius
Ritalin Nation: Rapid-Fire Culture and the Transformation of Human Consciousness, by Richard DeGrandpre
The Naked Ape, by Desmond Morris
Key Ideas in Human Thought, edited by Kenneth McLeish
Social Theory: Roots and Branches, edited by Peter Kivisto
The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin
Techniques of Persuasion, by J.A.C. Brown
The Social Contract and Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, by Tadeusz Borowski
The Throwaway Children, by Lisa Aversa Richette
The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in The Death Camps, by Terrence Des Pres
Today's ISMS: Communism, Fascism, Capitalism, Socialism, by William Ebenstein
Studies in Sexual Inversion: A Study in Greek Ethics & A Study in Modern Ethics, by John Addington Symonds
Left Brain, Right Brain, by Sally P. Springer and Georg Deutsch
Aspects of Love in Western Society, by Suzanne Lilar
The Future of The Body, by Michael Murphy
Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, by Edward O. Wilson
Feminism/Postmodernism, edited by Linda J. Nicholson
Goodman and Gilman's The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics, Alfred Goodman Gilman, Louis S. Goodman, and Alfred Gilman
Reincarnation: An East West Anthology, edited by Joseph Head and S.L. Cranston
Family Therapy Basics, by Mark Worden
A History of The Soviet Union, by Geoffrey Hosking
The Language of Modern Politics, by H. Mark Roelofs
Gods, Genes, and Consciousness, by Paul Von Ward
The Self-Aware Universe, by Amit Goswami, Ph.D
Psychic Dictatorship in the U.S.A., by Alex Constantine
A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues: The uses of Philosophy in Everyday Life, by Andre Comte-Sponville
Discovering the Brain, by Sandra Ackerman
The Stance of Atlas: An Examination of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand, by Peter Erickson
Greek City-States, by Kathleen Freeman
The Male Ego, by Willard Gaylin
Beyond Psychology, by Otto Rank
A Guide to Cults & New Religions, by Ronald Enroth & Others
Symbolic Wounds: Puberty Rites and the Envious Male, by Bruno Bettelheim
Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication in Cybersociety, edited by Steven G. Jones
From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean, by Eric Williams
The Hero Within: Sic Archetypes We Live By, by Carol S. Pearson
Inside Hitler's Germany: Life Under The Third Reich, by Matthew Hughes & Chris Mann
Thunder and Lightning: A No B.S. Hockey Memoir, by Phil Esposito
The History of Stupidity, by Paul Tabori
From Beirut to Jerusalem, by Thomas L. Friedman
Democracy and the Arts, edited by M. Melzer, Jerry Weinberger, & M. Richard Zinman
He Who Does Not Howl with the Wolf: The Wagner Legace, An Autobiography, by Gottfried Wagner
Dictionary of Native American Mythology, by Sam D. Gill & Irene F. Sullivan
When Egypt Ruled the East, by George Steindorff & Keith C. Seele
Kapitalizm: Russia's Struggle to Free Its Economy, by Rose Brady
"The Good Old  Days": The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders, edited by Ernest Klee, Willi Dressen, & Volker Riess
The Postmodern Organization: Mastering the Art of Invisible Change, by William Berquist
Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science & The Biology of Belief, by Andrew Newberg, M.D., Eugene d'Aquili, M.D., Ph.D., and Vince Ruse
Hitler Victorious: Eleven Stories of German Victory in World War II, edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg, with an introduction by Norman Spinrad. (Anthology of psuedo-historical fiction that explores the alternate reality of a World War II Nazi victory, a reality mankind only narrowly escaped)
A Hundred Little Hitlers: The Death of a Black Man, The Trial of a White Racist, and the Rise of the Neo-Nazi Movement in America, by Elinor Langer