I wrote on David Brooks’ editorial Neural Buddhists earlier today. In his piece Brooks recommends a series of authors, but no titles and no links, to help grasp this new brain science and its implications for our understanding of ourselves. Here’s his list, with Amazon links inserted to relevant books.

Andrew Newberg and Why We Believe What We Believe
Daniel J. Siegel and The Developing Mind and The Mindful Brain
Michael S. Gazzaniga, with his 2005 The Ethical Brain and Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique coming out in June (see this excerpt from Edge)
Jonathan Haidt and The Happiness Hypothesis
Antonio Damasio, with his classis Descartes’ Error (which kicked off a lot of this popular shift)
Marc D. Hauser, a little questionable in my mind, but here’s his Moral Minds.

Greg has described other books, such as Bruce Wexler’s Brain and Culture (see his excellent critical review here, Why Brain Science Needs Anthropology) and John Medina’s Brain Rules. I might add Liars, Lovers and Heroes by Steven Quartz and Terrence Sejnowski and The Accidental Mind by David Linden

I also ran across another book this morning which looks like a great addition, John Horgan’s Rational Mysticism: Dispatches from the Border between Science and Spirituality. Horgan is a journalist (including a former stint at Scientific American), and helps run the Center for Science Writings blog, which looks quite good!

Some other people are already reacting to Brooks editorial. Mary Martin at Animal Person has an interesting take, examining more the athiesm and religion angle. She also recommends the Mind & Life Institute, which does “Collaborative Research among Buddhists and Western Scientists.”