Happy New Year! Can you believe it's already 2023? What's your year ahead have in store? If you're not sure, now's a great time to sign up for my Leveling Up and Leveling Out Group or a Child Consult Group - both start soon, so snag your spot today! (You can also sign up for one of my upcoming talks or workshops by going to the new Talks & Workshops tab.)
Maybe, though, you already have some New Year's resolutions in mind. If one of them is to read more, then this quick post is for you.
What I want to share with you today is two lists I've made. I read a lot - like, a book or two a week lot - so people ask me for book recommendations all the time. To make it easy to share my favorite psychology and psychology-adjacent books, I've made some Amazon Idea Lists.
Here are the direct links to each list, and then below the picture, you'll find a brief description of what you'll see on each list:
Non-Fiction Books that will Fascinate Assessment Psychologists (click the title to open the list, or go to https://a.co/d07RpKU)
Textbooks for Assessment Psychologists (click title to open, or go to https://a.co/i3xofN2)
On the Non-Fiction Books that will Fascinate Assessment Psychologists (click the title to open the list, or go to https://a.co/d07RpKU), you'll find almost 100 non-fiction books that I think will be of immense interest to anyone who assesses children, adolescents, or young-to-middle-age adults. These are all books I've read mostly in the last 5 years. I enjoyed all these books enough, or found them thought-provoking enough, to assign them 4 or 5 stars after reading. Many inspired me, and several dozen have had a direct impact on my practice.
Most of these titles would be found in the science, history, pop psychology, and current issues sections of your local bookstore, with a few from the child development section. There are books about play, sleep, breathing, nature, education, race, gender, poverty, decision-making, behavioral economics, anti-time management, social media, communication skills, leadership, and philosophy on this list, just to name a few topics. Books on this list are not textbooks, treatment manuals, books about report-writing, or parenting books (those are all on the second list).
I also did not include memoirs, biographies, or books about specific disorders, as I imagine you've read plenty of those. I also tried to steer away from books everyone gets assigned in graduate school, though a few "classics" might have snuck in. While I think all these books are amazing, or at least compelling and challenging, I obviously don't agree with everything every author on this list says. You're welcome to dive in, add on, disagree with, or otherwise engage with this list - I hope you will! Leave me your thoughts, ideas, and recommendations in the comments section. A few more caveats, though:
There's so many more books that I want to read than there are books that I have read (my To Be Read list is 800 books long). So this list is just a sample of whatever non-fiction, psychology-adjacent books have caught my attention in the last few years, rather than a definitive list of the best books ever. Similarly, I read mostly science, nature, and world history/microhistory when I read non-fiction, so that also limits the pool of psychology-adjacent books I've read.
Because I've done recent presentations on decision-making, cognitive biases, burnout, and communication in psychology, there's a fair number of books on those topics.
This list is more white, cis, able-bodied, and otherwise privileged than I'd like it to be, so if you have great suggestions for books that will help me expand my horizons and encounter other perspectives, please send them my way!
Books on trauma tend to be triggering for me, so there's not many of those on either of my lists, even though it's certainly an important topic.
On the Textbooks for Assessment Psychologists (click title to open, or go to https://a.co/i3xofN2) list, you'll find the list of textbooks, treatment manuals, parenting books, and report-writing books that I think were worth the money I spent on them. A special caveat for this list is that I was in grad school over [cough] 15 years ago. Many of the textbooks on this list I would have read in earlier editions. Also, I no longer read many textbooks, treatment manuals, or parenting books in my spare time, so there are probably lots of recent great books that should be on this list that I've just never discovered. (Again, feel free to send me recommendations in the comments section.)
However, people ask me which textbooks I'd recommend all the time, so I put this list together in case it's of interest. Right now there are about 60 books on this list.
Okay, three final notes. First, the books are in color order, because I always organize my books by color. Second, if you buy any of these books from Amazon by clicking through from the list, I think I'll get a tiny commission. So, thanks for supporting my work if you do. And last, if you want to know what I'm reading next, send me a message or follow me on Goodreads. I love talking books so don't be shy. What have you been reading lately that you've loved? What are you most looking forward to reading? Let us all know in the comments. Happy reading!
