There Is Life After the Nobel Prize

By: Eric R. Kandel

Narrated by: Paul Heitsch

Length: 2 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

One day in 1996, the neuroscientist Eric R. Kandel took a call from his program officer at the National Institute of Mental Health, who informed him that he had been awarded a key grant. Also, the officer said, he and his colleagues thought Kandel would win the Nobel Prize. "I hope not soon," Kandel's wife, Denise, said when she heard this. Sociologists had found that Nobel Prize winners often did not contribute much more to science, she explained.

In this book, Kandel recounts his remarkable career since receiving the Nobel in 2000 - or his experience of proving to his wife that he was not yet "completely dead intellectually" Kandel relates how the Nobel Prize gave him the opportunity to reach a far larger audience, which in turn allowed him to discover and pursue new directions. He describes his efforts to promote public understanding of science and to put brain science and art into conversation with each other. Kandel also discusses his return to Austria, which he had fled as a child, and observes Austria's coming to terms with the Nazi period. Showcasing Kandel's accomplishments, erudition, and wit, There Is Life After the Nobel Prize is a candid account of the working life of an acclaimed scientist.

©2021 Eric Kandel (P)2022 Tantor

A beautiful and perfectly written book

A fantastic book that I found to be very well written and very inspirational. I found development and maturation for a young man coming of age such as myself in this book and I further highly recommend it.

in for a suprise!

this included much more information on psychology and neurobiology than I expected. I loved it though

His Wife's Worry, Proved Right

Dr. Kandel starts the book by highlighting a conversation with his wife, Dr. Bystryn a very notable medical socioligist, whom is worry that Eric will go downhill in his research after receiving the Novel Prize. This is something that Dr. Bystryn found in her own research as a Post-Doc of Nobel Laureates going back to the 1950s (note that Drs. Curie and Rutherford were before that time, both winning two Nobels each and doing there best work after receiving their recognition).

Dr. Kandel then uses this book to prove that his research and active life in academia were still ahead of him after his Nobel Prize in 2000 CE. However, the book only takes two hours to highlight that he, Dr. Kandel, only did social outreach and teaching of the public after his award. He highlights his efforts to educate the public, his reading of pro-transgender psychiatry, and other notable causes he's taken since winning the nobel prize.

To be honest, the story was a let down. Rather than proving that his best research and academic life were still ahead of him, Dr. Kandel proves his wife right that he did nothing in his area of research that further contributed to our understanding of the human mind. I am not saying that public education on one's subject is not a worthwhile endeavor, but is far from the pinnacle of one's field. I couldn't even finish the last of this book because of my disappointment and feeling that I was let down by the author in what he promised to deliver.

Paul Heitsch does a wonderful job narrating and I believe the book is well presented in audio format. However, unless you want to hear an hour of how neo-humanism in a post-christian world will only benefit society, don't pick up this book. In the end, kudos to Dr. Bystryn for being right, as a top researcher and a wife.