This article contains the best books on body language with a short introduction.
Body language is the primary method all species communicate.
Even though humanity developed complex language to express thought, feeling, and fact, the words people used make up the smallest input of their message.
Sarcasm is a good example of how little the words you use mean. Sarcasm is using serious words, with a tone, and a face, and body language that portrays mockery.
People will use their words to lie. It is as difficult to involve body language in a lie as it is for a contortionist to find a job that isn’t in a circus. You should never lie, anyways.
If you are able to become a master at reading body language, you will know everything about a person. Even before they know it themselves. You’ll even become a human lie-detecting machine.
Robert Green talks about how extreme listening is a super power in his new book on human nature, that many dislike because he targets virtue signalers and their empty values. A good read.
Extreme listening–paying attention–is a requirement for being good at identifying body-language trends that are used to create baseline patterns for behavior recognition.
If you don’t know your own body language you have no clue the presence you are portraying. For example, closing off is a sign of weakness and others will treat you as prey.
Closing off looks like:
- legs crossed
- arms crossed
- posture hunched (attempts to make your core less visible)
- touching your neck
- touching your face
- consistent movement – jitters
- holding yourself (grabbing your arms, your legs, etc)
- hunched shoulders (relax your shoulders)
Retreating makes you look weak. Worse than that, retreating makes you feel weak. Your mind and body are one. If your body is held in a weak manner, you will feel how you are portraying your value. Or lack of value.
If you lack confidence you can easily boost–not fix–your confidence by correcting your body language. Your mind will begin to perceive you as the strong, dominant, lion you are. One day, you may be close to becoming the greatest version of yourself.
People understand how important body language is but don’t know how to improve their appearance. Amy Cuddy’s Ted Talk on body language is one of the most popular Ted Talks and later, she wrote a book about the same subject.
People care about body language but don’t know where to begin. Videos are a good way to learn, to see what good and bad body language looks like.
Books are another medium to learn body language, including how to interpret the messages one signals through their movement.
Body language book list
Below are the best books on body language. We are defining best as books we have read ourselves that show great merit and the highest rated books on Amazon about the subject.
This list is in no order and will be updated when new, worthy books are released or found.
The entries below are affiliate links which means you can support the Andreian Philosophy by buying a book and also support yourself.
If you like audiobooks, use our Audible partnership and get two free books below at no cost to you.
The Best Books on Body Language
What Every BODY is Saying | Joe Navarro
Kindle | Paperback | Hardcover | Audiobook
What Every Body is saying is written by former FBI agent Joe Navarro. Navarro is an expert in non-verbal cues; he uses cues to determine if people are lying or withholding information.
His book attempts to teach civilians how to recognize the same non-verbal signals he relied upon to do his job as a counterintelligence agent.
You don’t need to be in law enforcement to read this book. Any man can read What Every Body is Saying and benefit from becoming a little better at reading body language. Navarro even talks about how reading body language can help your dating game.
Most of the book requires paying attention for Navarro’s advice to work, difficult in the era of instant gratification and social media addiction.
This book will force you to pay attention to your interactions with others. You’ll notice their body language, whether or not they are nervous, how comfortable they are, and more.
After body language cues are pointed out it becomes difficult to not see them.
Navarro wrote a follow up to what Every Body is saying called The Dictionary of Body Language. We haven’t read it, but it is advertised as a encyclopedia of body language.
Notable Passages:
When a foot suddenly begins to kick, it is usually a good indicator of discomfort. You see this with people being interviewed, as soon as a question is asked they do not like.
Shoulders rising toward the ears causes the “turtle effect”; weakness, insecurity, and negative emotions are the message. Think of losing athletes walking back to the locker room.
Notice how confident or high-status individuals will claim more territory with their arms than less confident, lower-status persons. A dominant man, for example, may drape his arm around a chair to let everyone know that this is his domain or, on a first date, might confidently throw an arm over a woman’s shoulder as though she were his property.
Spy the Lie: Former CIA Officers Teach You How to Detect Deception | Multiple Authors
Kindle | Paperback | Hardcover | Audiobook
Three former CIA officers collaborated to write Spy the Lie: a book about a system Phillip Houston, also author, created to determine when people are lying.
Houston uses techniques involving body language and verbal ques to find out if someone is being deceptive or telling the truth.
Spy the lie isn’t a pure body language book but it deserves to be in this list.
It is easy to tell a lie; it is hard to hide when you’re lying.
Subtle body-language cues are pattern triggers for people lying, like when an individual displays physical expressions of fear, anxiety, or being uncomfortable; all of which translate into emotions one could feel when lying; but not always.
Some examples of body language that could display a lie includes:
- Crossing the arms
- touching the neck or face
- excessive slouching
- frequent blinking
- Fidgets
- unable to make eye contact
The reasons above could be triggered by lying but they could also be baseline behavior for some people. Take a baseline. See how a person behaves when they aren’t under pressure, then see how they change when pressured.
One reason why polygraph examiners ask you questions like: “what is your name?”, is to get your baseline level of stress and other factors, answering a question you aren’t lying about.
Houston spent twenty-five years as a polygraph examiner. While there is no guaranteed way to determine if an individual is lying, twenty-five years of experience determining lies gives Houston’s book the best chance of a book to help.
Notable Passages:
The strategic principle is that if you want to know if someone is lying, you need to ignore, and thereby not process, truthful behavior.
Our experience has shown that if we can identify the first deceptive behavior within that first five seconds, we can reasonably conclude that the behavior is directly associated with the stimulus.
All the lies that have ever been told or ever will be told fall into three categories, or strategies: lies of commission, lies of omission, and lies of influence.
Presence | Amy Cuddy
Kindle | Paperback | Hardcover | Audiobook
Amy Cuddy is featured in the video above. Presence is the book inspired by her Ted Talk on body language.
Presence isn’t just about body language. The book also speaks about how being present and accepting who you are in the moment improves your life.
A large part of being present is paying attention to your body language, turning an unconscious behavior into a controlled behavior.
You want to control as much of your body as possible. Your breathing, your body language, your words, to start.
The way you hold your body directly impacts how you feel. Your posture even determines testosterone levels depending on the strength of your posture.
The best value in presence is the research Cuddy conducted and the explanation of how strong body language can calm your nerves during high-pressure circumstances, like meditation.
We prefer this book in the audio format.
Without Saying a Word: Master the Science of Body Language and Maximize Your Success | Kasia Wezowski & Patryk Wezowski
Kindle | Paperback | Audiobook
A husband and wife business duo who founded the center for body language, the self-acclaimed #1 body language training company for… business people.
We have not read this book. We chose to include it based on the high number of reviews and the limited selection of body language books.
Kasia Wezowski describes herself as a business coach. Coach, is a word that means almost as little as the word guru. However, Wezowski does have three masters degrees and has been featured in enough publications and universities to believe she knows what she is talking about.
People who did read the book liked the references to political candidates and how their body language manifests.
However, like any guru or coach, we have already seen the push to up-sell to coaching opportunities within reviews listed for this book.
The Definitive Book of Body Language | Allan & Barbara Pease
Kindle | Paperback | Hardcover | Audiobook
Who would have thought the body-language business is so inviting to married couples. Another book written by a husband and wife duo about body language. The reason, is likely due to body language “coaches” being so easy to fake, like people on Instagram.
This book was originally published in 2004 and doesn’t include the mandated sensitivity training required by those sensitive to words.
The Definitive Book of Body Language is old. However, the book does a good job elaborating on the different body language differences between men and women back when you could address the differences between men and women without fear of a witch hunt.
Coming in at 402 pages, this book is a large volume that covers a lot of body language and talks about other signals like makeup, weak handshakes and body language attributes belonging to each gender.
While this book is close to twenty years old, that may be a good thing. Sensitivity culture didn’t exist when this book was first published and the chances of it being watered down to promote an agenda is unlikely.
You won’t learn body language by reading books
These are the best books on body language we could find. If you’re serious about learning body language, pick up Spy the Lie and What Every Body is Saying. You don’t need more than these two books unless you plan on starting a body language training institute.
The only way to learn body language is by practicing and observing body language.
Books can help you understand basic body language cues, but each individual is as unique as their fingerprints and their tells are unique as well.
To read body language and determine what messages mean, you need to practice on your own. Try picking up how various people you’re interacting with are feeling. Are they exhibiting body language that supports how they’re feeling, or not?
Look at the examples listed in the best body language books of feelings associated to specific cues, then see if the examples are accurate while you observe people around you.
If you learn how to read body language, people will believe you have some kind of gift.
Most believe they are hard to read. The truth is, everyone has their tells and once you’re made, you’re trapped.
Read these books on body language to help what others are saying. Reading these books may help you learn who you are and how you feel, too.
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1 comment
Thank you very much. Your books do give readers a deep insight in understanding what’s going around…