Mind Wide Open

Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life

By: Steven Johnson

Narrated by: Alan Sklar

Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

Brilliantly exploring today's cutting edge brain research, Mind Wide Open allows readers to understand themselves and the people in their lives as never before. Using a mix of experiential reportage, personal storytelling, and fresh scientific discovery, Steven Johnson describes how the brain works and how its systems connect to the day-to-day realities of individual lives.

Johnson embarks on this path as his own test subject, participating in a battery of tests and experiments in search of a modern answer to the oldest of questions: who am I? He explores how we "read" other people, how the brain processes frightening events, what the neurochemistry is behind love and sex, how our brain teems with powerful chemicals closely related to recreational drugs, why music moves us to tears, and where our breakthrough ideas come from.

Johnson suggests that learning about the brain's mechanics can widen one's self-awareness as powerfully as any therapy, meditation or drug. To read Mind Wide Open is to rethink family histories, individual fates, and the very nature of the self.

©2003 Steven Johnson (P)2004 Tantor Media, Inc.

Critic reviews

"It's the rare popular science book that not only gives the reader a gee-whiz glimpse at an emerging field, but also offers a guide for incorporating its new insights into one's own worldview. [Johnson] does just that in his fascinating, engagingly written new survey." (Publishers Weekly)
"Spreading a gospel to be curious about one's own mind, Johnson, aided by personal anecdotes about, for example, the length of his attention span, will snare even those unfamiliar with brain science." (Booklist)

Amazing

This is an excellent introduction into neuroscience. If you are worried that this field of study might be to complex to understand, you will love the everyday explanations the author uses in this book. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding how their own brain works.

Not a bad read at all

What did you like best about Mind Wide Open? What did you like least?

Great, accessible approach to thinking about the mind, but gets a bit breathless at times.

What aspect of Alan Sklar???s performance would you have changed?

He's a decent reader, but in this title his voice seemed less than authentic. Hard to explain, but sometimes readers *become* the story, other times they *tell* it.

amaturish

If you have never contemplated how the brain works and have suddenly became interested, then perhaps this would be a good book for you. Otherwise, I would suggest "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell followed by "On Intelligence" by Jeff Hawkins. These are much more interesting without being overwhelming.

Lightweight and Repetitive

Sol Stein has an equation for writing, 2+2 = 1. It means that more is less. He pounds this advice into authors. Too bad Steven Johnston was not one of Stein's students. Rather than a book about the brain, this work is a collection of antidotal observations about how Johnston perceives his brain works. As Stein preaches, some is very good too much detracts and this book distracts.

Unlike good science writers, Johnston misses interesting points. For example, he writes about the failure when playing a one computer game that was driven by his mind because the calibration was wrong. The main question here is not that the equipment was badly calibrated, but that calibration is necessary each time the game is played. Why does the brain need this while some other physiological measurements do not? Perhaps a deep idea here? But the book ignores this and drones on, repeating the obvious with little insight.

To be fair, there were a few bright spots; for example, when he compares the old Freudian approaches to the Ego and Id with modern understand of the brain workings, but these gems are very few, very far between and quit unpolished, almost afterthoughts.

All in all, a book only for insomniacs..

Don't know how this got an average rating of 4

I have to admit that I did not finish this book, which is an endless stream of boring anecdotes ... endured about 100 minutes. I finally gave up while on my treadmill, preferring the sound of my thumping feet.

Wished it was good...but it's not.

I wish that it was a good as the reviews. But it got boring and I couldn't even finish it. Something like "Listening to Prozac" is more interesting. Skip it.