Books like The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music

01

This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession

Daniel J. Levitin · Science

Daniel Levitin came to neuroscience from the music industry — he was a record producer who worked with Stevie Wonder, the Grateful Dead, and Blue Öyster Cult before getting a PhD in psychology and cognitive neuroscience.

02

The Art of Learning

Josh Waitzkin · Self-help

The Art of Learning is Josh Waitzkin's account of how he became a national chess champion as a child and later a world-champion martial artist, and what those two very different disciplines taught him about the structure of high performance.

03

Mastery

Robert Greene · Self-help

Mastery is Robert Greene's long account of how extraordinary human mastery develops — from childhood inclinations through apprenticeship through creative independence to the integration that characterizes true mastery.

04

Big Magic

Elizabeth Gilbert · Self-help

Big Magic is Elizabeth Gilbert's manifesto for living a creative life — not as a professional artistic career but as an orientation toward existence.

05

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi · Psychology

Flow is Csikszentmihalyi's landmark study of optimal experience — those moments when people are so deeply absorbed in an activity that time warps, self-consciousness disappears, and effort feels effortless.

06

1984

George Orwell · Philosophy

Nineteen Eighty-Four is George Orwell's 1949 novel about a future England called Airstrip One, governed by the totalitarian Party under the figurehead Big Brother.