Summer Reading List 2009
By Mark Fallon

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about thinking.

I wonder why I can't clear my mind when I'm tired and want to sleep. Or why I can see logical solutions to some problems, but baffled by other, simpler issues. Why I love reading books about history, science, leadership and management, as much as action thrillers by Lee Child, Jack Higgins and Brad Thor.

These thoughts are just the tip of the iceberg. There's been research and writing on how our brains work. This year, the summer reading list includes recommendations that have been helpful as I've tried to learn more about myself.

Joseph Hallinan's Why We Make Mistakes is a provocative take on why humans are prone to error. Or, according to the subtitle, "How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average."

Research by psychologists and neuroscientists show that many errors are the result of small, subtle choices that build on each other. Hallinan includes humorous and tragic stories about simple mistakes with significant consequences. In hindsight, it's easy to see how bad decisions could have been avoided, but it's not as easy to stop the next mistake before it happens.

The comforting, or perhaps disturbing, conclusion is that to err is human. People are designed to make mistakes, and while you can learn to decrease your number of errors, you'll still make mistakes. The book's final chapter includes steps you can take to refine your decision making.

Another guide to improving your thoughts and actions is The Window: Viewing the Essential Balance to Life and Success by C.R. Stewart, the president of The Britfield Group, a consulting firm specializing in leadership and strategy. In The Window, Stewart shares the principles for success he's learned over the last 20 years.

To support the principles outlined in the book, each chapter contains real-life success stories. For example, to reinforce the importance of adaptability and flexibility, there's Richard Branson, and how he turned a small mail-order record business into a multi-billion dollar empire that includes Virgin Airways. The Window also features a workbook to help you create your own action plans.

And if Daniel Pink is right, most of us will need action plans for success in the days ahead. In A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, Pink discusses the shifts in our economy that will reward creativity and empathy instead of logic and linear thinking. So if your job can be done by a computer, or outsourced to someone who'll do it cheaper, you may need to rethink your career path.

To help you prepare for that new career, Pink describes the six aptitudes, or "senses", he sees as essential to success: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Ploy, and Meaning. The good news is we've used these aptitudes at some point in our lives. Pink has developed simple exercises to help us reinvigorate these senses. You exercise your body. Why not exercise your mind?

But are your body and brain pre-wired for certain tendencies? That's one of the questions raised in Matt Ridley's Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. Using a gene from each of the 23 pairs of chromosomes that make up our DNA as a launching point, Ridley discusses what we've learned about the history of the human race. Some concepts about heredity are confirmed, while others are discarded.

Through the Human Genome Project, scientists have mapped out the complete set of human genes. With that map, we can discover more about the causes of disease, develop therapies, and improve the quality of life. We're also learning about how our genes impact our behavior, resurrecting the "nature vs. nurture" argument on human behavior.

Ridley is able to write about these technical discoveries and theories in layman's terms. He emphasizes that gaining knowledge through gene research is important and necessary, even if how we use that knowledge is subject to debate. And as a believer in free will, Ridley writes, "Heritability does not mean immutability." You, not your genes, control your life.

Gaining and sharing knowledge is at the heart of Science at the Edge, edited by John Brockman. Brockman is the founder and president of the Edge Foundation, a nonprofit agency established to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues. Through his online forum at Edge.org, Brockman invites thinkers from different disciplines to share ideas, learn from each other, and argue with each other.

The book is a compilation of "conversations" (interviews, speeches, articles) with people working on the cutting edge of new ideas in biology, computers, physics and cosmology. Instead of supporting a single point of view, the book includes competing viewpoints on multiple subjects.

The authors of the articles are brilliant women and men working on problems I didn't know existed. The ideas and theories they discuss represent the leading edge of knowledge. But the edge of what? The different research reveals one truth: we don't know what we'll discover next.

To put that into context, I recommend reading about the last Age of Discovery in Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe, by Laurence Bergreen. This fascinating book chronicles Ferdinand Magellan's attempt to sail his fleet around the world in 1519.

Thoroughly researched, Over the Edge of the World reads more like a thriller than a history book. Through firsthand accounts from survivors, Bergreen weaves Magellan's tale with drama and intrigue, including mutiny, greed, and cannibalism. Not just a name from a high school exam, Magellan becomes a living character, and his journey becomes a remarkable adventure.

While these books provided answers, they provoked even more questions. I'm still thinking about thinking.