The Strange Order of Things

Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio investigates homeostasis, the condition that keeps human physiology within the range that allows life not only to survive but to flourish, and uses it to explain the origins of life, feeling and culture. Spanning the biological and social sciences, he argues that humans are descended, in biological, psychological and even social terms, from a lineage that starts with single cells. Human minds and cultures, in his account, remain tied to the ways of ancient unicellular organisms and other early forms of life. Damasio also holds that a striving toward keeping life going is built into our chemistry, governing life in all its forms, including the development of the genes that regulate and pass it on.

Bryan Callen, co-host of The Fighter and the Kid, named it among great books he had been reading, in his Top Three Must Reads recommendations.