Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot

Unleashing Your Brain's Potential

By: Richard Restak M.D.

Narrated by: Richard Restak M.D.

In Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot, eminent neuropsychiatrist and bestselling author Richard Restak, M.D., combines the latest research in neurology and psychology to show us how to get our brain up to speed for managing every aspect of our busy lives.

Everything we think and everything we choose to do alters our brain and fundamentally changes who we are, a process that continues until the end of our lives. Few people think of the brain as being susceptible to change in its actual structure, but in fact we can preselect the kind of brain we will have by continually exposing ourselves to rich and varied life experiences. Unlike other organs that eventually wear out with repeated and sustained use, the brain actually improves the more we challenge it.

Most of us incorporate some kind of physical exercise into our daily lives. We do this to improve our bodies and health and generally make us feel better. Why not do the same for the brain? The more we exercise it, the better it performs and the better we feel. Think of Restak as a personal trainer for your brain—he will help you assess your mental strengths and weaknesses, and his entertaining book will set you to thinking about the world and the people around you in a new light, providing you with improved and varied skills and capabilities. From interacting with colleagues to recognizing your own psychological makeup, from understanding the way you see something to why you’re looking at it in the first place, from explaining the cause of panic attacks to warding off performance anxiety, this book will tell you the whys and hows of the brain’s workings.

Packed with practical advice and fascinating examples drawn from history, literature, and science, Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot provides twenty-eight informative and realistic steps that we can all take to improve our brainpower.Executive Producer: Orli Moscowitz
Producer: David Rapkin
Lightly adapted for the audio format
Original jacket design: Whitney Cookman
Portrait of Mozart: Erich Lessing/ Art Resource, NY
©2001 Richard M. Restak, M.D.
(P)2002 Random House, Inc.

Falls short of expected

Mr. Restak's book is well written, and packed with information, but short of some good suggestions for the exploration of your brain, the book states what is either obvious or common knowledge for the past several years.
If you have never heard any information on how brains work, or how to stimulate and train them, you can get some good info out of this book. Otherwise, it simply restates current knowledge.

not as interesting as it's title might lead on

just left much to be desired. I guess I should stick with physics books.

Standard Self-help stuff

Interesting material about the brain. The approach is a bit bland and unoriginal: "By following these excersizes, you too, can become a mental giant!". A lot of time is spent going over techniques on memorization, writing in a journal, and mental excersizes; pretty much stuff that's in any other "increase your IQ in 21 days!" book. The idea of the brain as a machine, to be optimized to the nth degree, is a bit outdated. Great if you're into that kind of thing, but personally I found nothing truly insightful.

I liked it

This book explains about how the brain works and has good exercises for memory. I am a classical musician and I learned that the brain can concentrate and learn new material for about 45 min. That was really helpful for me in gauging My practice. All in All Good book.

Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot (unabridged)

I liked this book because it tells you simply how your brain works and the way to keep it working well, even with age, and how is it that one "forgets" things when you are "not supposed to", it is also good to help younger people learn and achieve letting them know they can get to where they want because it is their brain that will help and they can do it! just by thinking (well with work too)