Flickr / Ed Yourdon It's pretty handy that some members of our species devote their entire lives to understanding how human beings work.

Even handier is that they share their findings so that we can live more simply, think more clearly, and generally be better people.

We asked Lynn Lobash, manager of the New York Public Library's Reader Services department, to recommend the books on human behavior that are required reading.

Here are 15 of the most compelling.