A review by vanillabee
Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

3.0

I've enjoyed the actual scientific content of this book, but I don't enjoy the way it's written and the author's personal bits mixed in. The author tends to bring the same stuff up again and again and repeat the same phrases ("dopamine is what causes runner's high" for example) and it got really annoying. For me - how it was written was at too low a level, explanations felt overly simplistic, the metaphors often used felt unnecessary. I was interested in the science more than anything, and would have liked more of that, but got a lot of the author's personal life and opinions instead. I understand the book was written for personal reasons, so it's not fault of the authors, but I didn't like it myself. Having her impose her opinions on the information (like in the chapter about the non-local mind, when she talks about how that "left me a bit cold"), draw every story back to her own anecdotes and experiences, and end every chapter with her personal perspective ruined it for me. It could have made the book interesting, but I didn't really care. I would have preferred a book with an invisible narrator.