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A review by gw7
Your Brain Is a Time Machine: The Neuroscience and Physics of Time by Dean Buonomano
informative
mysterious
slow-paced
4.0
From the title I thought that this book was going to be written more in the style of Katie Mack's 'Then End of Everything', high level with a cool 'plot line' that engages the lay reader in this idea that 'your brain is a time machine!' The main thing stopping this from being that is that it is much much further away from a 'popular' science book. Of course this can be seen in the high brow points being made and the complex science being discussed, but I personally felt it more in the style of the rhetoric- the author presented an idea, described it, often gave the reader experiments (either mental or physical) that they could do to prove it for themselves, and then... went on to refute seemingly every argument or proposition made against this theory ever. Which, of course, is necessary in science and scientific papers and presentations but... is it necessary in a popular science book? I don't think so. Written into a popular science book and it makes it feel like the conversational monologue-ing of the member of the family on the opposite of the political spectrum than you that you see once a year at Christmas.
That being said, the points were good, and valid, and I learned things. But I also found that a lot of the thoughts I had while reading this book were revelations and new ideas about other topics and ideas- that is to say realisations from my subconscious (while my conscious was supposedly focusing on this book). Ideas that I probably wouldn't have had without the book, but nevertheless, I did find it hard to concentrate on (because of that and the fact that I had to stop every two second to understand some scientific principle.
Overall it felt like the author started with an idea that begs a plotted exploration (your brain is a time machine), explored every scientific question in relation to said idea (that, while they weren't, seemed at times tangential) and then tacked on the conclusion to the first idea as if it were the satisfying conclusion to the initial proposed story line... even though the middle (everything barring the title and the last few pages) were written like detached factual experiences that had no story about them relating to the overall 'plot' that we were seemingly promised.
None of which is to say it was good or bad because of those factors, just may not be something you're interested in.
That being said, the points were good, and valid, and I learned things. But I also found that a lot of the thoughts I had while reading this book were revelations and new ideas about other topics and ideas- that is to say realisations from my subconscious (while my conscious was supposedly focusing on this book). Ideas that I probably wouldn't have had without the book, but nevertheless, I did find it hard to concentrate on (because of that and the fact that I had to stop every two second to understand some scientific principle.
Overall it felt like the author started with an idea that begs a plotted exploration (your brain is a time machine), explored every scientific question in relation to said idea (that, while they weren't, seemed at times tangential) and then tacked on the conclusion to the first idea as if it were the satisfying conclusion to the initial proposed story line... even though the middle (everything barring the title and the last few pages) were written like detached factual experiences that had no story about them relating to the overall 'plot' that we were seemingly promised.
None of which is to say it was good or bad because of those factors, just may not be something you're interested in.