The Rawness

This is a continuously updated list of recommended reading material. I’ll keep updated and reorganizing this, so check back often.

Eventually this section will be better organized and categorized, but in the meantime I’m just going to throw on every helpful book I can come up with. If you plan to purchase any of these resources through Amazon.com, keep in mind that clicking on one of the links on this page to purchase will give me a commission.

Best Starting Point:

This is an Audible audio book called True Self/False Self. I think it is by far one of the most powerful speeches I have ever encountered and puts much of this in perspective. Even if you plan to try everything on this list, I’d highly recommend you start with that speech.

Books That Have Answered Many Reader Problems (Shown in No Particular Order)

Anatomy of Female Power by Chinweizu (free pdf copy)

Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find – and Keep – Love
by Amir Levine

Games People Play
by Eric Berne.

I’m OK–You’re OK
by Thomas A. Harris

Getting Things Done
by David Allen

Willpower’s Not Enough
by Arnold Washton

Healing the Shame that Binds You
by John Bradshaw

Beat Low Self-Esteem With CBT
by Teach Yourself Series

What the Buddha Taught
by Walpola Rahula

A New Earth and The Power of Now
by Eckhart Tolle

The Drama of the Gifted Child
by Alice Miller

Narcissism: Denial of the True Self
by Alexander Lowen

Narcissistic Lovers
by Cynthia Zayn

Emotional Vampires
by Albert Bernstein

Don’t Let Them Psych You Out!
by George D. Zgourides, MD

Help! I’m in Love with a Narcissist
by Steven Carter & Julia Sokol

Stop Walking on Eggshells
by Paul T. Mason and Randi Kreger

Reinventing Your Life
by Jeffrey E. Young, Ph.D

The Object of My Affection Is in My Reflection: Coping with Narcissists
by Rokelle Lerner

In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People
by George K. Simon

Winning by Intimidation
by Robert Ringer

Why We Hate Us: American Discontent in the New Millennium
by Dick Meyer

The War of Art
by Steven Pressfield

People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck

Who’s Pulling Your Strings?
by Harriet B. Braiker

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The Top 10 Distinctions Between Winners and Whiners by Keith Cameron Smith.

Easy, breezy uplifting read. Nothing earth-shattering or ground-breaking, but good common sense that is not as common as we like to think. It has 10 good life lessons worth refreshing yourself about from time to time:

10.  Winners take responsibility. Whiners play the victim.

9. Winners can have what they want. Whiners want what they cannot have.

8. Winners find a way. Whiners find an excuse.

7. Winners brighten a room by entering. Whiners brighten a room by leaving.

6. Winners listen twice as much as they talk. Whiners talk twice as much as they listen.

5. Winners enjoy life’s journeys. Whiners put their joy in the destinations.

4. Winners build friends. Whiners destroy friends.

3. Winners think big. Whiners think small.

2. Winners are focus-minded. Whiners are scatterbrained.

1. Winners create positive meanings. Whiners create negative meanings.

Of course each of these is elaborated on in the book. Short length (93 pages) makes it ideal for rereading, which I recommend.

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Mean Genes: From Sex to Money to Food: Taming Our Primal Instincts by Terry Burnham and Jay Phelan

Evolutionary psychology meets self-help. A book that uses evolutionary psychology to explain many of our self-sabotaging instincts, then gives practical advice on how to work around these counterproductive tendencies. You can read the NY Times review of the book here and an excerpt of the first chapter here. Also, check out the book’s website.

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A lot of readers compliment the way I lay out arguments, and ask what kind of job or education I had to be able to do that so well. I actually didn’t learn it from my schooling or my profession. I learned it from a very underrated source: philosophy books.

If I had to recommend one thing to people who wanted to learn to think better, it would be to read primary texts by philosophers. Don’t just read up on philosophers, read their actual primary texts. Many people mistakenly think the point when learning about a philosopher is to just find out the summary of what he believed. This is like just discovering the summary of a movie online or through word of mouth or seeing just the trailer and the last 5 minutes of the movie and claiming that you actually experienced it.

Philosophy isn’t just about the final destination or conclusion, the true point is the journey, the thought process itself. Philosophy isn’t so much about teaching you a viewpoint but rather teaching you how to process information to reach said viewpoint; it teaches you how to think in a clear and linear way.

Good information is just the start, the raw materials. Even if you have the best raw materials at your disposal to input, if you are incompetent at processing the materials you’ll end up with a crappy product.

4 rules to remember:

• Good input (knowledge) + Good process (clarity of thought) = Good output (conclusions)
• Good input + Bad process = Bad output
• Bad input + Good process = Bad output
• Bad input + Bad process = REALLY Bad output

A great introduction is the Philosophy in 90 Minutes series written by Paul Strathern. Very straightforward and easy to read without dumbing down the concepts. I’ve listed the works according to the chronology of the philosophers so that you can see the evolution of Western thought. But the real goal is not just to read these volumes but to get a feel for each philosopher’s place in history, then read the suggested readings in each volume so that you can experience each philosopher’s thought process in his own words. Whenever possible, you should always try to read original sources and not just someone else’s interpretations of the original sources.

The Philos0phy in 90 Minutes series (which literally do take 90 minutes or less to read apiece) are a great way to learn which are the most essential works from each philosopher and they do a great job at helping you digest their writings better.

Yes, it sounds like a lot of work, but if you want to learn to think on a higher level of awareness there are no shortcuts:

• Socrates in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

• Plato in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

• Aristotle in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

• St. Augustine in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

• Thomas Aquinas in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

• Descartes in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

• Spinoza in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

• Locke in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

• Berkeley in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

• Leibniz in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

• Hume in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

• Kant in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

• Hegel in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

• Schopenhauer in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

• Nietzsche in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

• Wittgenstein in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

• Heidegger in 90 Minutes

• Sartre in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes)

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