A Wide Range

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Sandra Aamodt, Ph.D. and Sam Wang, Ph.D.

Welcome to Your Brain

Bloomsbury

Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys but Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life is a national bestseller by two serious neuroscientists with a sense of humor (Aamodt was editor-in-chief of Nature Neuroscience and Wang is a professor at Princeton). Harvard’s Daniel Gilbert describes it as “a delightful and engaging romp through neuroscience by two of its leading lights—a marvelous collection of facts and findings that answer the questions we all have about our own minds.  If the human brain came with an owner’s manual, it might well look like this.”

Jeff Hawkins and Sandra Blakeslee

On Intelligence

Times Books/Henry Holt

Legendary innovator Jeff Hawkins -- inventor of the PalmPilot and the Treo smart phone – teams up with New York Times science writer Sandra Blakeslee to present a new way of thinking about the connections between human intelligence, the brain, and potential future technologies.  Neuroscientist Michael Merzenich calls it “a landmark book.  On Intelligence is the first clear exposition of what could be the long-awaited ‘great general theory’ of human brain function.”  Wired magazine selected it as the best book of 2004.

Andrew Newberg, M.D.

How God Changes Your Brain

Ballantine/Random House

“God is great—for your mental, physical, and spiritual health,” asserts Andrew Newberg, the director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Spirituality and the Mind.  He’s done the research to prove it in How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist, a scientific look at the positive effects of spirituality on the human brain.  According to the Washington Post, “Newberg, perhaps America’s leading expert on the neurological basis of religion, brings a fresh perspective.  And [he] offers plenty to challenge skeptics and believers alike.”

Gary Marcus

Guitar Zero

Penguin Press

On the eve of his fortieth birthday, Gary Marcus, a renowned scientist with no discernible musical talent, learns to play the guitar and investigates how anyone—of any age—can become musical.  A groundbreaking peek into the origins of music in the human brain, this odyssey is also an empowering tale of the mind’s enduring plasticity.  Steven Pinker calls Marcus “one of the deepest thinkers in cognitive science” and  Paul Bloom writes, “if you have ever dreamed of becoming a musician, you must read Guitar Zero.”

Joe Palca & Florence Lichtman

Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us

John Wiley & Sons

Why do minor irritations drive us to distraction?  In ANNOYING: The Science of What Bugs Us, NPR Science Correspondent Joe Palca and Science Friday’s Flora Lichtman take a wide-ranging scientific tour to reveal what’s similar (and different) about the annoying sounds, smells, drivers, friends, strangers, and spouses in your life. Comes with a foolproof recipe for annoying just about anyone.  “A charming and insightful book,” says Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, “that can make you both less annoyed and less annoying.”

Miguel Nicolelis

Beyond Boundaries

Times Books/Henry Holt

Award-winning neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis shows how the merger of brains with machines is about to become a paradigm-shifting reality.  In this book, Nicolelis takes us into his lab, where he teaches monkeys to use their brains alone to control the movements of a robotic arm thousands of miles away.  Such brain-machine interfaces may one day restore mobility to severely paralyzed patients, and may offer a path to a cure for neurological disorders like Parkinson’s.