Beyond

If you want to get to know the scientists behind the work even better, this is just the right place for you. In this section of Beyond, the researchers present books which have impacted their lives and their ways of thinking in meaningful ways. The books presented range from novels, to memoirs, to science books of all sorts. You can filter the books by genre or just scroll through the list. This is also a great way to get inspiration for your own reading!

Volker Nocke

Of Human Bondage

Of Human Bondage is the first and most autobiographical of Maugham's novels. It is the story of Philip Carey, an orphan eager for life, love and adventure. After a few months studying in Heidelberg, and a brief spell in Paris as a would-be artist, Philip settles in London to train as a doctor. And that is where he meets Mildred, the loud but irresistible waitress with whom he plunges into a formative, tortured and masochistic affair which very nearly ruins him.

Sonja Sudimac

An Anthropologist on Mars

An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales is a 1995 book by neurologist Oliver Sacks consisting of seven medical case histories of individuals with neurological conditions such as autism and Tourette syndrome. In addition, Sacks studies his patients outside the hospital, often traveling considerable distances to interact with his subjects in their own environments.

Alfred Freeborn

Pain, Pleasure, and the Greater Good: From the Panopticon to the Skinner Box and Beyond

Today, we are horrified at the idea that a medical experiment could be performed on someone without consent. But, as Gere shows, that represents a relatively recent shift: for more than two centuries, from the birth of utilitarianism in the eighteenth century, the doctrine of the greater good held sway. Showing that utilitarianism is based in the idea that humans are motivated only by pain and pleasure, Gere cautions that that greater good thinking is on the upswing again today and that the lesson of history is in imminent danger of being lost.

Daria Benden

How Emotions Are Made

This understanding of emotion has been around since Plato. But what if it is wrong? In How Emotions Are Made, pioneering psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett draws on the latest scientific evidence to reveal that our common-sense ideas about emotions are dramatically, even dangerously, out of date – and that we have been paying the price. Emotions aren't universally pre-programmed in our brains and bodies; rather they are psychological experiences that each of us constructs based on our unique personal history, physiology and environment.