Overview

The brain may be the seat of consciousness and the engine of all human experience, but it's also messy, fallible, and disorganized. For example, did you know that your memory is egotistical? That conspiracy theories and superstitions are the inevitable effects of a healthy brain? Or that alcohol can actually improve your memory? (Editor's note: please read the book before testing that last conclusion.) In Idiot Brain, Dr. Dean Burnett celebrates blind spots, blackouts, insomnia, and all the other downright laughable things our minds do to us, while also exposing the many mistakes we've made in our quest to understand how our brains actually work. This is the best kind of popular science-lucid, funny, and whip-smart-from a debut author who will be tickling funny bones and firing neurons for a long time to come.

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9780393253788

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Reviews

""I really admire Dean Burnett's work. He's very compelling and wise and rational. You know you can trust him and you know it's going to be a great read."" -- Jon Ronson

I really admire Dean Burnett's work. He's very compelling and wise and rational. You know you can trust him and you know it's going to be a great read. -- Jon Ronson

Entertaining ... offers illuminating discussions of the way the memory works, of fear and panic attacks, of our susceptibility to being conned or depressed, and of the marvels of the human senses. -- Wall Street Journal We love a good brain book, and Idiot Brain by Dean Burnett might just be our new favorite. -- Bookish A neuroscientist's irreverent guide to the brain... Burnett manages to both entertain and inform in engaging ways that would benefit the performance of the most humorless pedant. -- Kirkus (starred review) British neuroscientist Burnett, author of the Guardian blog Brain Flapping, packs an incredible amount of information into an accessible package with this breezy, charming collection of pop neuroscience musings on 'how the human brain does its own thing despite everything the modern world can throw at it.' -- Publishers Weekly In Idiot Brain, neuroscientist Dean Burnett doesn't just explain the weird inner workings of our brain's most bizarre bits and pieces in terms that we can understand, he explains them in terms we can laugh at, and relate to. If you've ever wanted to sit down with a neuroscientist, have a few drinks, ask a zillion questions, and laugh until you snorted, read this book. -- David McRaney, best-selling author of You Are Not So Smart I really admire Dean Burnett's work. He's very compelling and wise and rational. You know you can trust him and you know it's going to be a great read. -- Jon Ronson, best-selling author of So You've Been Publicly Shamed An entertaining romp through the science of our mental processes ... fascinating. -- Gaia Vince, author of Adventures in the Anthropocene

"""I really admire Dean Burnett's work. He's very compelling and wise and rational. You know you can trust him and you know it's going to be a great read."" -- Jon Ronson"

Author Information

Dean Burnett is a neuroscientist at the Institute of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences at Cardiff University and is the author of the Guardian's most-read science blog, Brain Flapping. He lives in Cardiff.

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