Allan Siegel & Hredy Sapru (2010). Essential neuroscience (2nd edition). Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
This is an excellent source for students who would like to go further in learning about the nervous system or some portion of it. Although it is designed for medical students, it is written in such a clear manner that a motivated undergraduate student would have no difficulty understanding it and learning from it. The illustrations are exceptionally clear. You are not likely to want to read this cover-to-cover, but it is a great resource if you want to find out more about any particular part of the nervous system.
Daniel Wegner (2002). The illusion of conscious will. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. An underlying assumption of the chapter you have just read is that events in our nervous system make us do what we do. Where, then, does free will come in? Wegner’s thesis in this enjoyable book is that the experience of willing a movement is not the cause of a movement, but derives from brain activity that occurs milliseconds after the nervous system has begun to produce the movement. Wegner explores the function of this feeling and presents examples of situations in which our actual movements are not the same as those that we consciously feel that we have willed.
Norman Doidge (2007). The brain that changes itself. New York: Viking. This is a fun-to-read book about the plasticity of the human brain. It describes case histories of brain-damaged patients who made remarkable recoveries. It is also about the science behind those recoveries and about some of the scientists who have pioneered the study of the brain’s plasticity—people such as Alvaro Pascual-Leone, whose work we mentioned in this chapter. You can read here about a woman who gets along quite well with only half a brain, about people who have recovered from strokes and other serious brain injuries through deliberate brain exercises, and about brain-stimulating programs that seem to help children with learning disabilities overcome those disabilities.
Steven Johnson (2005). Mind wide open: Your brain and the neuroscience of everyday life. New York: Scribner. Steven Johnson is a popular writer, not a psychologist or neuroscientist, and this is as nontechnical a book about the brain and mind as you are likely to find. Johnson’s quest is to come to grips with certain aspects of his own emotions, thoughts, and actions, and to do so he interviews brain scientists, submits himself to various brain tests and biofeed back procedures, and writes philosophically and humorously about his experiences. It is a fun yet thought-provoking entry-way into the world of the brain, for the person who has just begun to think about it.
Michael Shermer (2012). The Believing brain: From ghosts and gods to politics and conspiracies—How we construct beliefs and reinforce them as truths. New York: St. Martin’s. Psychologist and science historian Michael Shermer takes a new look at how beliefs and evidence are synthesized in the brain. The brain is, Shermer argues, designed to seek out and identify patterns and pieces of information that support already-held beliefs. Through a series of anecdotal examples, he makes the case for why the brain first believes then constructs explanations.