What’s Going On in Your Brain
September 21, 2012
I finished more books on the brain over the last few weeks. Actually I finished three, but my friends tell me one doesn’t count. You can decide for yourself.
I won’t pretend to give them all thorough reviews, but I will make a brief comment on each. I think they are all worth reading of you want some insight into what’s going on in your mind as you wander through life.
Charles Duhigg’s “The Power of Habit,” was interesting for the first 125 pages (out of 290). He does a great job explaining how habits develop, but he leaves the specifics about what to do about it until the appendix. He offers a general theory and solution but he stops just short of a full answer. He uses his own habit as an example of how to break a habit. For my money that’s why people buy the book. A good part of the rest of the book was really marketing advice, and while it was interesting, I’m not sure it was ‘on point,’ as they say.
Lawrence Rosenblum’s “See What I’m Saying,” is a great look at neuroplasticity – the brain’s capacity to expand the functionality in one area, to make up for deficits in others. Rosenblum is a psychologist and researcher, not a writer, so his style is exactly the opposite of Duhigg.
Where Duhigg is light and easy to read, Rosenblum can be a bit more theoritical or professorial. There’s nothing wrong with it, but you have to work much harder to find the nuggets. But his explanation of how hearing makes up for lost eyesight, or how touch and taste and smell can evolve, to help out when other senses are lost is fascinating.
I also recently read Jonah Lehrer’s “Imagine,” and while I don’t condone his creative quotes from Bob Dylan, he does make some interesting points about the creative process. A good friend of mine told me , “you can never know what he’s making up.” Which is is quite valid – particularly for a journalist. 
Maybe I’m just reflecting my own cognitive dissonance -believing what I want to believe – but I don’t think anyone could conjure all the situations and theories he presents out of nothing. In that vein, I’ve decided not to ask Amazon for my money back, even though they offered.
