I would love to get a list of even say 3 or 5 books then that you think are "real". Im genuinely curious about this, i dont mean to come of as standoffish :)
1. The Wiley Handbook on the Development of Children's Memory by Patricia J. Bauer & Robyn Fivush. (A really excellent book, even if somewhat dated, a lot of it has withstood re-examination).
2. Memory Reconsolidation, edited by CM Alberini
3. The Nature of Emotion, Fundamental Questions 2nd Edition
Edited by Andrew Fox.
I mean just go on google scholar, look for chapters on a topic you find interesting. You will more likely get the real stuff that way than pop psychology books, or by reading frauds like Freud.
But why are these books everyone should read? or can read, for that matter. You just pointed to books meant to be read by people in the field. Like, I possess a book on the neurochemistry of memory formation, but I can't make heads or tails of it, frankly, because I don't have the background.
So, the books are going to be popular psychology almost by definition (and we really shouldn't continue the academic tradition of sneering at academics who write for the popular market. We need them).
I get your irritation about Freud. Dan Ariely and Daniel Kahneman are pretty relevant today, actually. I'd add these books:
* Decisions, Uncertainty and the Brain by Paul Glimcher
* Why Choose This Book: how we make decisions by Read Montague
So Subiculum, can you recommend books on memory that aren't intended to be read by academics in the field?
Update: Subiculum indicates that they read their first suggestion, the Wiley Handbook as an undergraduate, so I'm guessing that it is accessible enough for a general audience.
I think it is still useful to read Freud, assuming you don't take it as gospel and consider when he wrote it and how little was known at the time. In my opinion, Freud was a brilliant man. The fact that some of his ideas are so obviously false today might serve as immunization against hubris, with which some of us do not realize that many of our ideas will seem absurd in a hundred years.
I think it is useful to read Freud primarily so that you can appreciate his influence on the history of ideas. The ideas themselves are not really of any contemporary interest, imo.
