Books like Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious

01

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman · Psychology

Thinking, Fast and Slow is Daniel Kahneman's account of the two cognitive systems that govern human thought.

A kindred psychology read.

02

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain

David Eagleman · Psychology

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Stanford who argues that the conscious self is a late, small, and largely uninformed participant in the brain's activity.

Both dig into unconscious mind.

03

Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior

Leonard Mlodinow · Psychology

Leonard Mlodinow is a theoretical physicist who writes accessible science for general audiences.

Both dig into unconscious mind.

04

Predictably Irrational

Dan Ariely · Psychology

Predictably Irrational is Dan Ariely's examination of how humans make decisions that are consistently, systematically irrational — not random or arbitrary, but irrational in ways that follow patterns.

A kindred psychology read.

05

Stumbling on Happiness

Daniel Gilbert · Psychology

Daniel Gilbert is a Harvard psychologist whose central finding, after decades of studying affective forecasting, is that humans are systematically wrong about what will make them happy.

A kindred psychology read.

06

The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

Stephen Grosz · Psychology

The Examined Life is a collection of short psychoanalytic case studies drawn from Stephen Grosz's 25 years of practice as a psychoanalyst in London.

Shares self-knowledge and identity with Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious.

07

The Light We Carry

Michelle Obama · Memoir

The Light We Carry is Michelle Obama's second memoir, published in 2022 as a follow-up to Becoming.

Shares self-knowledge and identity with Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious.

08

100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People

Susan Weinschenk · Psychology

Susan Weinschenk is a behavioral scientist and UX consultant, and this book is her translation of cognitive science research into practical guidance for designers.

Both dig into behavior.

09

Adult Children of Alcoholics

Janet G. Woititz · Psychology

Adult Children of Alcoholics is Janet Woititz's clinical guide to the lasting psychological patterns that develop in children raised in alcoholic families.

Both dig into identity.

10

Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

Andrew Solomon · Psychology

Andrew Solomon's book is a ten-year investigation into families raising children who are profoundly different from their parents — deaf children of hearing parents, children with Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, severe physical disabilities, and other conditions that create what Solomon calls "horizontal identity": an identity shared with peers rather than inherited from family.

Both dig into identity.

11

The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

Sonya Renee Taylor · Psychology

Sonya Renee Taylor's central argument is that the way societies teach people to hate, distrust, or feel ashamed of their bodies is not a personal failing but a political and economic system — and that dismantling it begins with what she calls radical self-love.

Both dig into identity.

12

The Dance of Anger

Harriet Lerner · Psychology

Harriet Lerner's central argument is that anger is a signal, not a problem.

Both dig into self-knowledge.