A lot of people think, “What good is a book if it doesn’t make you smarter?” well they aren’t completely wrong. The purpose of the reading books should mostly be due to its knowledgeable content and groundbreaking research but that isn’t what we get from most.
So in order to gain knowledge from a particular book, we must know what content it holds and would that be of any interest to us. This means that not all books can be educative to everyone. Some books can make your friend smarter in a different way while being completely useless to you.
Elaborating on that, “Smartness” is a vague concept and doesn’t really have a fixed source or type. There can be different ways to gain knowledge that classifies you to be smart so let us not get into that but there are certain books that might surely make you smarter and I’m here to help with that.
These books can be enjoyed in leisure time as well as between breaks and might be interesting in quite different ways to different readers. Trying these books out would definitely be a great option to expand your knowledge.
Best 11 Books That Make You Smarter:
Moonwalking with Einstein
This book is written by Joshua Foer. This has been a worldwide bestseller and would definitely be for the reader’s best interests. The author is a journalist so we know his research is solid and obviously he is well trained in attracting the readers with his content.
This book represents the stories from the author’s life of about a year when he was concentrating on improving his memory. He explains his research and everything he had to go through in order to improve his memory by studying the brightest minds of the century.
He discusses the cultural history of remembering and is definitely one of the best books that talk about the Mentalist’s trade venerable tricks which will help in transforming our understanding of human memory. This is a piece of work that helps us in realizing that we are who we are due to our memory and we can’t be anything without it.
Thinking, Fast and Slow
This book is written by Daniel Kahneman. The author is a Nobel laureate which gives his work a certain amount of credibility above a lot of authors. His work is intriguing and insightful as he writes brief accounts of the functioning of our brilliantly structured human mind.
He discusses the main aspects of the brain where he talks about the two major ways the brain thinks and makes decisions. These two manners are fast and slow. He explains his theory and curiosity in simple words with great explanations and discusses a lot of aspects of the given topics. He discusses whether one of them is better and the differences between the two.
Sapiens: A brief history of humankind
This book is written by Yuval Noah Harari. And it explores human history as it is pretty obvious from the title of this book. He starts by discussing the initial stages of affairs that the humans had to undergo and then he talks about the evolution of humankind.
The author discusses the time when the Homo sapiens had to share the planet with others, leading up to contemporary humans and everything past that. He has done a great job in trying to present all the development that our kind has undergone and this includes our brain development as well as our cultural development. It even explains and discusses our expansion throughout history.
The Sixth Extinction
This book is written by Elizabeth Kolbert. It is a perfect blend of intellectual and natural history and it presents all the data in a very insightful way. The way the data is represented is in a very powerful way that latches the reader’s interests as well as fulfills their intent.
It talks more about the future of humankind than in the past. As evident by the title of this book it talks about the sixth extinction that might happen. There have already been five mass extinctions on the planet that have affected the life on Earth as we know it. The scientists are currently researching on the sixth one that might take place soon enough.
These scientists have predicted this sixth extinction to be the most devastating one ever since the asteroid strike that killed all the dinosaurs on the planet. This means that the cycle will repeat itself and we’re going to be on the receiving end this time.
This book is based on the work of a lot of scientists and expert geologists who have been studying these researches their entire lives. The author talks about a number of already extinct species and many others that are undergoing the process. It is a great book to read and would definitely help you broaden your horizons as this won’t be like anything you have read before.
Train Your Brain: 60 Days to a Better Brain
This book is written by Dr. Ryuta Kawashima. It is a short book but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worthy of being read. Giving it a chance might surprise you over how helpful and innovative it is. It is a quick ride over the information that helps in trying to prevent the loss of capabilities and the aging process.
It is basically a stimulation to help you understand the topic better. It includes a series of spreadsheets that help us in knowing certain exercises for boosting our brainpower. It is a very short book but is really effective given that the topic chosen by the author is one that he specializes in, himself.
A Brief History of Time
This book is written by Dr. Stephen Hawking which gives it all the credibility it needs. We all know that Prof Hawking was a genius with a brilliant mind and he helped us in understanding the concept of time as well as perfected our knowledge of physics as we know it.
This particular book is appreciated a lot by the people who are in science and even normal people who don’t know much about it. Dr. Hawking talks about how the universe began and the reason behind it. He talks about questions that are bigger than ourselves like if space has boundaries if there are other dimensions in space or even if time just flows forward or not.
He gives the reader insight into what might happen if the entire universe ends in a pretty simple language. He tries to explain to us the concept of black holes and how everything started which is beyond our imagination. He reveals the secrets of the universe that we weren’t previously aware of.
Stamped from the Beginning
This book is written by Ibrahim X. Kendi. It talks majorly about how the current American society believes that they have outgrown racism and the election of the first black president destroyed the concept of racism from the country.
This book discusses how the racist mentality still lives in America under the darkest corner and the simplest shadows. The author is an award-winning historian so his grasp on the subject is impeccable. He picks the most hidden nits that we might never have thought of before. The information he underlines by the medium of this book is extremely crucial to be read by our current society to know what lives in secret around them.
What if?
This book is written by Randall Munroe. By the medium of this book, the author tries to point towards some brilliant questions that didn’t cross our minds and then make an attempt in answering them. This is why he has a huge fan following for his web-comic and a huge number of people go to his website every day to check for updates.
He tries to answer the questions of most of his followers in a number of innovative and insightful ways that might bring a person to his knees when he realizes the depth of it all. The kind of questions he answers using his stick figured comics are “Would a spent nuclear-fuel pool pose any kind of threat to a person trying to swim in it?”, ” Is it possible to build jetpacks with the help of machine guns pointed towards the ground while firing?”, and many more. And his responses are quite brilliant as well, considering his raw brilliance and extreme intelligence.
Think and Grow Rich
This book is written by Napoleon Hill. The title of the book might mislead you into thinking that it is about the ways that we can earn money. If you think so then please take that thought off your mind. This book is about understanding the basic elements that a person needs to know in order to be successful or to make money.
It provides insights into the fundamentals of a lot of things that help in the processes happening around all of us. It helps us in looking inside our thought process and understanding why and how they take place. I bet that just by reading this much, you have started to feel interested in the given book which is why I would recommend you to read this.
Daily Rituals: How Artists Work
This book is written by Mason Currey. It clearly does what it advertises to do, it looks into the working methodologies of the most brilliant artists that the world has ever seen and I assure you that it will definitely help the reader in a very positive way. It concentrates on great musicians, scientists, writers, poets, and many other successful artists.
This doesn’t try to inspire the artist on a level that covers a longer period of time, instead, it covers a day to day approach that inspires the reader to do everything on a much smaller level, that is, working on your goal gradually and consistently.
A Short History of Nearly Everything
This book is written by Bill Bryson. And it is a book that everyone should read at least once in their lives. And it actually does what it advertises. It discusses and reviews all the history up to our modern-day lives in a pretty insightful manner by the author.
However, the major purpose of this book isn’t our history, but it is actually interested in discussing some very important topics in life such as what the purpose of our life is and what we need to do to figure it out. It is more commonly seen as a regret that the reader couldn’t read it in his school as it would’ve been inspiring at a whole new level.
I hope I could be of any help in trying to figure out a book to read in order to gain knowledge. If the content was helpful, please drop a comment on the post or leave a like on it.