wanderaven's review against another edition
4.0
Fascinating!
This entire book was just endlessly fascinating to me. It's all about how traumatic insults to the skull and brain, whether by physical force or insidious viruses, affect our physical abilities and thoughts.
Kean expertly weaves storytelling about particular brain trauma patients with carefully explained science. I knew of a few of the conditions discussed, but certainly not in the detail Kean devotes. He explains the process of how damage occurs and then why that damage can cause conditions like kuru disease, phantom limbs, aphasia, hallucinations. He even touches on the history of scientists and doctors attempting to local the home of the soul in the brain.
Kean opens each section with the story of a particular person (or group of people) who has experienced an injury to the brain, and then explains how the doctors of the time attempted to help that victim with their contemporary knowledge. Each story is like a mini-mystery; you receive just enough information to understand the situation and then want to keep reading in order to solve/understand the process along with the doctors or scientists. I don't want to give them all away, but one example is how the cannibals in Papua, New Guinea were felled by kuru; in the end it wasn't because they cannibalized their dead ("eating brains isn't inherently deadly") but rather but rather "the bad luck of eating patient zero."
Kean explains why even people born without limbs can experience phantoms, blind people will still respond to smiles or scowls or yawns without even understanding why, how reading changes our brain, why some victims of brain damage can write perfectly well but cannot read (not even the sentence they just wrote), that brains vary from person to person as much as faces do, and how a set of (still living) twins share a conjoined brain and so can do things like taste what's in one another's mouths and yet retain distinct individual thoughts and preferences.
Witty, informative, a bit scary. To consider how vulnerable and yet also how resilient our brains are, is just fascinating.
This entire book was just endlessly fascinating to me. It's all about how traumatic insults to the skull and brain, whether by physical force or insidious viruses, affect our physical abilities and thoughts.
Kean expertly weaves storytelling about particular brain trauma patients with carefully explained science. I knew of a few of the conditions discussed, but certainly not in the detail Kean devotes. He explains the process of how damage occurs and then why that damage can cause conditions like kuru disease, phantom limbs, aphasia, hallucinations. He even touches on the history of scientists and doctors attempting to local the home of the soul in the brain.
Kean opens each section with the story of a particular person (or group of people) who has experienced an injury to the brain, and then explains how the doctors of the time attempted to help that victim with their contemporary knowledge. Each story is like a mini-mystery; you receive just enough information to understand the situation and then want to keep reading in order to solve/understand the process along with the doctors or scientists. I don't want to give them all away, but one example is how the cannibals in Papua, New Guinea were felled by kuru; in the end it wasn't because they cannibalized their dead ("eating brains isn't inherently deadly") but rather but rather "the bad luck of eating patient zero."
Kean explains why even people born without limbs can experience phantoms, blind people will still respond to smiles or scowls or yawns without even understanding why, how reading changes our brain, why some victims of brain damage can write perfectly well but cannot read (not even the sentence they just wrote), that brains vary from person to person as much as faces do, and how a set of (still living) twins share a conjoined brain and so can do things like taste what's in one another's mouths and yet retain distinct individual thoughts and preferences.
Witty, informative, a bit scary. To consider how vulnerable and yet also how resilient our brains are, is just fascinating.
racmros's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
2.5
I usually really like Sam Keans books but I couldn't get engaged with this one. I think it was the grating humor and lack of tact/respect about some of the subjects that I didn't like.
huntermatthew's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
lillian1998's review against another edition
4.0
I will admit I didn’t pay 100% rapt attention to this book, and that’s because this book is my leisure read. It is entertaining in such a way that I don’t mind even if I don’t learn anything.
Sam Kean’s writing is engaging, accessible, and enrapturing. True to his word, this book does not stop at entry-level psychology case studies (the likes of the famous HM and Phineas Gage) - there were many more cases that were not covered in intro psych (my level of exposure to models of memory, brain scans, psych studies, etc) and intro neurophysiology/biology/human anatomy (my level of exposure to brain things), so not only was this read somewhat familiar and easy to get into, it also offered something more.
I listened to this audiobook as bedtime material, and it’s excellent.
Sam Kean’s writing is engaging, accessible, and enrapturing. True to his word, this book does not stop at entry-level psychology case studies (the likes of the famous HM and Phineas Gage) - there were many more cases that were not covered in intro psych (my level of exposure to models of memory, brain scans, psych studies, etc) and intro neurophysiology/biology/human anatomy (my level of exposure to brain things), so not only was this read somewhat familiar and easy to get into, it also offered something more.
I listened to this audiobook as bedtime material, and it’s excellent.
rj6578's review against another edition
5.0
Very interesting stories and it wasn’t super medical. As I read it I started looking back at people I know who had similar issues and understanding more about why they act that way. I’d suggest this book for anyone wanting to know more how the brain works and how injuries to it impact specific abilities.
aishaaj's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 round up. This was a good book, but not a good audiobook. (Just due to the nature of the book. The narrator was fantastic though)
vermispore's review against another edition
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I deeply enjoyed reading this book. Every story was fascinating and the writing style elevated them even further. A treat to read and something I reccomend to anyone looking for a nonfiction book.
iamericat22's review against another edition
3.0
First two chapters were an anatomy review and pretty dull, but the rest of the book was great. There were interesting stories to go along with the brain physiology and ailments. There's lots of trivia here as well. Nothing too in depth and not a hard read overall.