Yes, we know. It’s more than studied and documented. The Christmas season is getting dangerously close and, as the days go by, the consumerist cravings (or the social pressure that induces us to buy gifts) grow like a soufflé.

When it comes to giving away books, most mortals will be able to satisfy their shopping needs with some best seller , a light novel or perhaps some recipe book. However, other types of people will have it much more complicated.

Books on psychology for Christmas giving and taking

These are the people who consider giving a book to a psychologist .

But there’s nothing to be afraid of. Taking up the trail of the successful first edition of 5 books to give to a psychologist at Christmas, now arrives the second part of the list of recommended readings most used by friends, colleagues and relatives of researchers of human behavior.

Also, as in the previous time, remember that you can always suggest new titles in the comments section.

And now, to read!

1. The man who mistook his wife for a hat , by Oliver Sacks

In this year 2015, one of the world’s best divulgers has left us: the neurologist Oliver Sacks . This Christmas may be a good time to start getting acquainted with his work, which is characterised by being extremely interesting from a scientific point of view and also surprisingly delicate while dealing with the more human subjects that soak into his work .

Because, in the end, Sacks writes about humanity: about how it develops when certain parts of its nervous system make it not perceive reality like the rest and, of course, how it faces the illness of its most intimate aspect: its own mind.

2. The factory of illusions , by Ignacio Morgado

An incredibly enjoyable book on psychology and neuroscience, made up of many short texts, each of which deals with a specific subject about our mind.

It is also divided into thematic blocks that cover many aspects of our daily lives : decision-making, sexuality, etc. It is the ideal book to read in small free time, trips on public transport and moments of waiting.

3. Ghosts in the brain , by V. S Ramachandran and S. Blakeslee

This is, possibly, one of the best books to learn the basics of logic through which the human mind works from the point of view of neuroscience.

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran , a neurologist well known for his research on phantom limbs, approaches here the big questions about how we think and feel through the study of the concrete structures of the brain, thus going from pure scientific popularization to philosophical and existential aspects. The way in which both the explanations and the unknowns raised are posed is clear and direct, and h there is a lot of ingenuity behind the way in which the relationships between certain subjects that apparently have nothing to do with each other are insinuated.

4. Dictionary of Psychology (AKAL)

Yes, a specialized dictionary . An option as boring as it is necessary in a world that is constantly generating new terms.

Having this dictionary of psychology is more important if we consider that psychology aims to study something as changeable as human behaviour and the processes of the nervous system using, in part, words.

5. The King’s Brain , by Nolasc Acarín

The neurologist Nolasc Acarín constructed in this book one of the best examples of the extent to which it is possible to condense many of the basic aspects of psychology and the study of behavior, associating them with what we know about human evolution and biology , and resulting in a book that is not very long, although it is very ambitious.

That is why this book is the right one for those people, dedicated or not to the world of psychology, who want to have a global image about our propensities, our style of behavior and our way of feeling.