The only one on this list I disliked was the Wright book, mainly because it's not a scientific justification of Buddhism. It's really about how evolutionary psychology explains stuff like road-rage and dieting struggles and how insight meditation (Wright's brand of secularized Buddhism) helps us manage those emotions. Which is fine. Only he's not an evolutionary psychologist and almost all the evidence he puts forward for the effects of meditation is anecdotal. For me a pretty disappointing book.

Really appreciate that feedback.. thank you!

Thanks for posting it! Definitely going to add a couple of those to my list.

Can highly recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow and Why Buddhism is True (listened to both as audio books).

I have not read the others, but the 5+ books I read by Bill Bryson have been awesome, putting The Body on my year's list - thanks ;)

Bill Bryson has a remarkable talent for making stuff that should be pretty dry quite remarkably interesting - I even found the sections on baseball in "One Summer: America 1927" fascinating (I'm not from the US).