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kimball_hansen's review against another edition
4.0
What a great book! The science is explained very well. I love all the stories of what happens when something is off in our minds, like those people that have face-blindness. It's like becoming a superhero. In fact, things that make up superheroes simply just have a quality that is just off the charts. Our minds are just the most complex thing in the universe. Reading books like this that show how we are so flawed, unique, and the potential of what we can become make me have a stronger belief in God.
Perhaps even more important than the science, these stories enrich our understanding of the human condition, which is the point of stories. Whenever we read about people's lives, fictional or not, we have to put ourselves into the minds of characters. The power of stories reaches across the divide.
Notes:
That would be so wild: have sleep paralysis, but awake while having dream still playing.
The human brain remembers information best through stories.
The story of Isabelle Dinoire's face transplant is nasty. Why would her dog just do that. He was a Labrador Retriever after all.
Our brains are bias in seeing action and movement. In order to see still things the eyes have to scribble over it. That's all neat.
The brain pays more attention to the fine motor neurons and that is why people feel phantom fingers more than hands and hands more than arms.
Wars advance the field of medicine more than it could ever do on its own.
Temporal lobe lesions can flip people's orientation from gay to straight. Don't let the Left hear that one, though.
People lie to look good, gain an edge, or conceal something.
Reading requires higher neurological dexterity than speaking does.
If just the right spot gets damaged in our brain we can lose just about anything in our mental repertoire no matter how sacred.
Perhaps even more important than the science, these stories enrich our understanding of the human condition, which is the point of stories. Whenever we read about people's lives, fictional or not, we have to put ourselves into the minds of characters. The power of stories reaches across the divide.
Notes:
That would be so wild: have sleep paralysis, but awake while having dream still playing.
The human brain remembers information best through stories.
The story of Isabelle Dinoire's face transplant is nasty. Why would her dog just do that. He was a Labrador Retriever after all.
Our brains are bias in seeing action and movement. In order to see still things the eyes have to scribble over it. That's all neat.
The brain pays more attention to the fine motor neurons and that is why people feel phantom fingers more than hands and hands more than arms.
Wars advance the field of medicine more than it could ever do on its own.
Temporal lobe lesions can flip people's orientation from gay to straight. Don't let the Left hear that one, though.
People lie to look good, gain an edge, or conceal something.
Reading requires higher neurological dexterity than speaking does.
If just the right spot gets damaged in our brain we can lose just about anything in our mental repertoire no matter how sacred.
sarahphiles's review against another edition
challenging
funny
informative
fast-paced
gabe_reads's review against another edition
4.75
The brain is absolutely fascinating. And the history of how we've discovered it and about ourselves more generally was really well portrayed in this book. I find it so interesting the way damage and disease can teach us so much about the way the healthy brain works. This was filled with fascinating examples of that, weaved in with the neurosurgeons who made those discoveries.
alaa_ilikecats's review
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
5.0
Ti's a fun read
And helped me remember things for my neuroscience exam
And helped me remember things for my neuroscience exam
larieber_reads's review against another edition
4.0
I listened to this book when I drove to DC. I loved it. The stories of weird brain diseases and symptoms they caused and how crazy and primitive neurosurgery was even in this past century is insane. So good.
jabarkas's review against another edition
4.0
Class A science writing, informative for beginners and engaging for experts.
A concise and engaging overview of the past and present of neurosurgery. Kean clearly understands the appeal of his subject matter, the unsettling yet fascinating reality of our brains as mechanical objects. I particularly enjoyed the pacing of his analysis, starting with the early medical resistance to accepting that the brain was even an organ and slowly reaching the frightening reality that perception and personality are nothing more than chemical processes. I found the book uniquely effective at enabling the reader to understand and FEEL the brain as a fallible and discrete system.
Kean's anecdotal writing style lends itself particularly well to this as well, giving the reader a personal connection the profound information he is dolling out. Though I was familiar with a lot of the case studies he mentions, Kean brings a unique depth of research to them and considers contrary arguments to his own in a considered and reasonable way. This means that his conclusions never feel forced or rushed, while at the same time lending each individual case analysis a living depth that few other science writers manage. I found the book uniquely effective at enabling the reader to understand and FEEL the brain as a fallible and discrete system.
Class A science writing, informative for beginners and engaging for experts.
A concise and engaging overview of the past and present of neurosurgery. Kean clearly understands the appeal of his subject matter, the unsettling yet fascinating reality of our brains as mechanical objects. I particularly enjoyed the pacing of his analysis, starting with the early medical resistance to accepting that the brain was even an organ and slowly reaching the frightening reality that perception and personality are nothing more than chemical processes. I found the book uniquely effective at enabling the reader to understand and FEEL the brain as a fallible and discrete system.
Kean's anecdotal writing style lends itself particularly well to this as well, giving the reader a personal connection the profound information he is dolling out. Though I was familiar with a lot of the case studies he mentions, Kean brings a unique depth of research to them and considers contrary arguments to his own in a considered and reasonable way. This means that his conclusions never feel forced or rushed, while at the same time lending each individual case analysis a living depth that few other science writers manage. I found the book uniquely effective at enabling the reader to understand and FEEL the brain as a fallible and discrete system.
Class A science writing, informative for beginners and engaging for experts.
leosaumure's review against another edition
5.0
This book was absolutely amazeballs! Sam Kean is really becoming a favourite author of mine. He takes topics that could be delivered as dry and boring, but instead, he coats them all in buttery goodness, and sprinkles them in interesting and sugary flavours. This may be the worst metaphor ever written.
Rather than reading this book, I listened to it in audio form, and unlike another book I listened to recently which will remain nameless...It was The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets by Simon Singh! Ok, it didn't remain nameless for long. Anyway, unlike that book, which had great content but a lousy reader, this one was both jam packed with great content, and the reader was quite engaged in the narrative.
If you want a really good story, and this does follow a story arch throughout the whole thing, then get this book! I also loved his book: The Disappearing Spoon.
Rather than reading this book, I listened to it in audio form, and unlike another book I listened to recently which will remain nameless...It was The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets by Simon Singh! Ok, it didn't remain nameless for long. Anyway, unlike that book, which had great content but a lousy reader, this one was both jam packed with great content, and the reader was quite engaged in the narrative.
If you want a really good story, and this does follow a story arch throughout the whole thing, then get this book! I also loved his book: The Disappearing Spoon.
taytots24's review against another edition
3.0
As a student pursuing a career in medicine, this book was fairly enjoyable and illuminated a lot of neurological studies I had never before heard of. That being said -- I very much recommend avoiding the audiobook. I almost quit the book halfway through, so annoyed was I with the reader's mispronunciation of words and odd intonation of sentences.