Non-skeptical must reads?

[lonely moa]

Dr Andrew Weil.  I quite liked his "Healthy Ageing".

[Tatyana]

I don't personally recommend going to read stuff by "the other side" unless you really want to because I for one don't find it terribly enjoyable or enlightening. I understand the moral hazard there of getting caught in a loop where you only believe in skepticky things because you're never exposed to the alternative, but I also feel like you can get quite a bit of exposure to "alternative" points of view just by interacting with the outside world.

Some of the Ray Comfort/Kirk Cameron videos are amusing enough to sit through if you're into irony.

I'm trying to educate myself, and I have never encountered much woo and pseudoscience in my personal life. I'm not talking about reading all kinds of crap, just a little bit. But I guess a couple of articles now and then will suffice?

Consider yourself lucky.

It depends what sort of woo interests you.

I was a huge fan of the occult, so I am, or was, fairly well versed in astrology and tarot cards, I also had a dabble in Wiccan.

Recently, I read a book by Rudolf Steiner (Waldorf Schools/Anthroposophy), and when I wasn't bored to tears, I was laughing my ass off.

You could always pick a religious book like the Bible or Koran, it really does depend on your interest.

You might just find that it really it is really quite tedious reading utter bullshit.

[Sawyer]

OP mentioned some Kevin Trudeau books.  Despite never having read them, I think I can assert that these are the 'other side' books that you shouldn't even bother with.  There will be absolutely zero content in these books, very few lessons on how to directly combat nonsense, and plenty of stuff that just plain pisses you off.

My suggestion is to try to find sources with at least a shred of scientific clout, or alternatively, find books written by people who are way too obscure to ever make money off their nonsense.  Trudeau wouldn't meet this standard, nor would anyone cranking out a diet book once a year.  If you're interested in evolution, I'd eventually check out Behe's intelligent design book to see what passes for evidence in the creationist circles.  There are probably a handful climate change skeptics that are worth reading, although I honestly have no clue who they are because the conspiracy nuts have successfully elbowed them out of the way.

As Tatyana pointed out, it is exhausting trying to read some of this stuff.  Some of the better hucksters are successful simply because they have time on their side; it will take you hours to fully dissect arguments that literally took them five minutes to research and write down.  Not worth it.

[spawnstar]

Watch Ancient Aliens and play spot that logical fallacy. It's a pretty entertaining watch.

[SnarlPatrick]

If you want to get a feel for where the other side is coming from, try watching what the bleep do we know. It's infuriating, but educational in a sense.

[superdave]

I read one of Jenny Mccarthy's books.  It was helpful in the sense that it made me more understanding the anti vax crowd.  As a book it was a pretty bad but very light reading,  I finished it in an afternoon.

[starnado]

Carlos Castaneda 'The teachings of Don Juan'. A fun read, as are all of his books in that oeuvre, if you like trying to separate fact from fiction.

'The Celestine Prophecy'. Not so much fun to read but a good insight into how a magico-religio-spiritual-o model of reality can be quite compelling for the suggestible.

Erich Von Daniken 'Fingerprints of the Gods'. How to stitch together meaningless patterns and geographical triangles into million dollar book sales.

[kpgarvin]

Are you god?