These 5 nonfiction books examining ego question the origins of self-identity.

1. The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore 

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“With controversial implications for our religious beliefs, our free will, our very sense of “self,” The Meme Machine offers a provocative theory everyone will soon be talking about.”

2. The Rise of the Mutant Ego by John Faupel

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“We still seem to believe in the ‘the ascent of man’ and that we are superior to all other species, so surely we must be in charge of our destinies. But is it any more valid, believing a man is superior to a butterfly because he is cleverer, than believing a butterfly is superior to a man because it is more beautiful? It has been suggested that our unashamed vanity has been dealt three serious blows. The first was cosmological, dealt by Copernicus in 1543, who showed that we were not at the center of the universe; the second was biological, dealt by Darwin in 1859, who showed that we were just one small branch of the evolutionary tree of life; and the third was psychological, dealt by Freud in 1900, who showed that the unconscious mind had a far greater influence on us than we had ever thought possible. To these might be added yet a fourth blow to our vanity. It is a blow that is gradually being exposed by the inquiry into what makes us feel and think and act the way we do and how much our heredity and environmental experiences influence our behavior. Perhaps we’re not quite as in charge of our destinies as we thought we were. Most of us think we learn from our experiences but perhaps we can do so only retrospectively and that this process is less about learning than conditioning.”

3. The Self Illusion by Bruce Hood

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“Most of us believe that we are unique and coherent individuals, but are we? The idea of a “self” has existed ever since humans began to live in groups and become sociable. Those who embrace the self as an individual in the West, or a member of the group in the East, feel fulfilled and purposeful. This experience seems incredibly real but a wealth of recent scientific evidence reveals that this notion of the independent, coherent self is an illusion – it is not what it seems. Reality as we perceive it is not something that objectively exists, but something that our brains construct from moment to moment, interpreting, summarizing, and substituting information along the way. Like a science fiction movie, we are living in a matrix that is our mind.”

4. The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist

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“A very remarkable book. . . . McGilchrist, who is both an experienced psychiatrist and a shrewd philosopher, looks at the relation between our two brain-hemispheres in a new light, not just as an interesting neurological problem but as a crucial shaping factor in our culture . . . splendidly thought-provoking. . . . I couldn’t put it down.”—Mary Midgley, The Guardian

5. The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson

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“The remarkable data assembled in The Spirit Level exposes stark differences, not only among the nations of the first world but even within America’s fifty states. Almost every modern social problem-poor health, violence, lack of community life, teen pregnancy, mental illness-is more likely to occur in a less-equal society.”

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