Before I Go to Sleep - SJ Watson

Christine wakes one morning in an unfamiliar bed next to a stranger with grey hair and a wedding ring. Though they're usually younger and single, the experience isn't a new one, but Christine has no recollection of the night before. she tiptoes to the bathroom, and that's when things start to become strange - her hands are wrong, old, and she's got a band on her left ring finger. Startled, she looks in the mirror and sees the face of a stranger - an old woman.
According to the man, Ben, eighteen years earlier Chris was in an accident that caused a rare form of amnesia - she can retain information for a day, but as soon as you gos to sleep for more than a nap it all goes. Sometimes she can remember parts of her twenties, and sometimes she thinks she's a girl, but she never remembers anything leading up to the accident or following it.
That premise is what lead me to pick up Before I Go to Sleep, and the idea of an exploration of identity reconstruction is fascinating. However, Watson's added a tense element - Chris discovers a journal, kept for weeks, where her previous selves details fragments they remember of their old life and secret therapy sessions with Dr Nash, a psychologist Ben refused to let see her. She learns about things Ben has kept from her, apparently to reduce distress, including the existence and death of their son. And on the cover of the journal, underlined, is the warning "Don't trust Ben!"
As the journal progresses Chris learns more about herself and her life, and becomes increasingly distrustful - about Ben, her therapist, and the reliability of the journal entries she wrote but can't remember. She also discovers that the act of writing things down has, as Dr Nash hoped, has allowed the waking her to retain some of that information. It also let her build up a more coherent picture of her post-accident life, including a lengthy stay is a psychiatric unit.
Perhaps my favourite aspect of Before I Go to Sleep is the beautifully executed unreliable narrator - like the very different but equally compelling We Need to Talk About Kevin, the single voice illuminates and clouds, creating a nivel that is both literary and genuinely gripping. As Anita Shreve says on the jacket, Before I Go to Sleep is "Brilliant in its pacing, profound in its central question, suspenseful on very page." I absolutely couldn't say it better myself. - Alex

Bruce Hood: Supersense

From the back of the book-

Do you cross your fingers, touch wood or avoid walking under ladders? If someone offered to replace your old teddy bear with an exact replica, would you accept?
Where do such feelings come from? It seems that human brains have to make sense of the world somehow, and that need to find an explanation can lead our minds beyond reason and into the supernatural. Education tells us such thinking is irrational, but at an intuitive level it can stubbornly persist in otherwise sensible adults. Barack Obama played basketball the morning of his victory in the Iowa primary-and on the morning of every following primary. This is not all bad-these beliefs can be a useful glue that binds us together as a society. And creative types rely upon the ability to see patterns in the world.

Combining brilliant insight with witty example, Bruce Hood weaves a page-turning account of our 'supersense', navigating a path through brain science, child development, popular culture, mental illness and the paranormal.
This is an outright fascinating read. Tracing links between biology, psychology and childhood development, the author presents an interesting argument as to how it can be perfectly reasonable to develop irrational beliefs.
As the subtitle, From Superstition to Religion-the Brain Science of Belief, suggests, this book runs the gamut of supernatural beliefs from the fringe to the institutionalized. All are examined with the same level of logic and though the writing veers into philosophy never does the text become inaccessible to the average reader
Whether you've an interest in why people persist in believing in aliens or ghosts or if you're just interested in the origins of lucky charms, this book may have the answers you seek.-Lynn

Speed of Dark - Elizabeth Moon

Lou Arrendale is a bioinfomatics expert. Though high functioning, he and his colleagues in Section A are also among the last people in Section A to have autism, a condition now corrected in infancy. The autists have tools that help them to manage the effects of their disability, like music rooms and a giant trampoline - when Lou returns from his quarterly psychiatry interview, for example, he spends some time bouncing:

No one interrupts me while I bounce, the strong thrust of the trampoline followed by a weightless suspension makes me feel vast and light. I can feel my mind stretching out, relaxing, even as I keep perfect time with the music. When I feel the concentration returning, and curiosity drives me once more toward my assignment, I slow the bouncing to tiny little baby bounces and swing off the trampoline.

Their new supervisor, Mr Crenshaw, resents what he sees as frivolous and indulgent extras; though Section A boast the highest level of productivity in the unnamed corporation which, through their employment, is able to claim significant charitable tax deductions, he believes the company would be better off with normal employees.
Lou works with abstract symbols, finding patterns and connections invisible to most people. The patterns of human interactions, though, are predominantly mysterious, despite a lifetime of being told how he ought to act and what he ought to do. He knows that Dr Fornum thinks he ought to exchange pleasantries with his co-workers as they wait for dinner, for example, but

we are all, in our own way, settling into the situation. Because of the visit to Dr Fornum, I'm more aware than usual of the details of this process: that Linda is bouncing her fingers on the bowl of her spoon in a complex pattern that would delight a mathematicians as much as it does her...

Unbeknown to Dr Fornum, Lou has also taken up fencing in his recreational time - though not great at interpreting the interpersonal aspects of the sport, he's very good at recognising the patterns of players, and disciplined about his approach. He's also attracted to one of the fencers, Marjory. He doesn't know if she likes him in any special way, but he's interested in finding out.
He's not able to concentrate on this, though, because he's under siege at home (where he's the target of an escalating series of vandalism attacks) and work - Mr Crenshaw has discovered an experimental 'cure' for autism (well, it works on chimps) and is pressuring the autists to enroll.
The title comes from a conversation between Lou and his co-workers over dinner, early in the novel:

"I was wondering about the speed of dark," I say, looking down. They will look at me, if only briefly, when I speak, and I don't want to feel all those gazes.
"It doesn't have a speed," Eric says. "It's just the space where light isn't."
"What would it feel like to eat pizza on a world with more than one gravity?" Linda asks.
"I don't know," Dale says, sounding worried.
"The speed of not knowing," Linda says. I puzzle a moment and figure it out.
"Not knowing expands faster than knowing," I say. Linda grins and ducks her head. "So the speed of dark could be greater than the speed of light. If there always has to be dark around the light, then it has to go out ahead of it."
"I want to go home now," Eric says. Dr Fornum would want me to ask if he's upset. I know he is not upset; if her goes home now he will see his favorite TV program. We say goodbye because we are in public and we all know you are supposed to say goodbye in public.

Lou is the purest form of light in the novel - despite his differences in cognitive processing, his motivations are easier to understand and relate to though most of the apparently normal characters in the book. Moon asks us to consider deeply philosophical questions about worth, contribution, difference, normalcy, disability and about the richness of infinite variety. I was reminded, for two reasons, of Sack's Seeing Voices, a non-fiction account of American Deaf culture that had part of me longing to be born Deaf of Deaf parents and that considers the merits of reversing a 'disability' that, to the affected, is no restriction and that has value.
It is perhaps inevitable that I compare Speed of Dark to that other famous autist-perspective novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night; they are both well crafted narratives written predominantly in first person by an author who has clearly spent a lot of time talking with people at the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum, and contemplating their thought processes, and common to both books is a mystery that contributes to the drive of the narrative.
Speed of Dark, though, is deep and textured well beyond that. In the Curious Incident Christopher's father has difficulty understanding how his words are literally interpreted; in Speed of Dark Lou and his cohort are surrounded by people driven to normalise them, not for their benefit but to ease societal discomfort, including the discomfort of those supposed to be helping and supporting them - Dr Fornum is, of course, the greatest culprit here, but Lou and his fellow autists have since childhood had experts telling them how they ought to behave, interact and think. Though Lou for the most part accepts this, I found myself becoming angry on his behalf.
Even his safest refuge, fencing class (where the trainer, Tom, not only accepts Lou for himself but supports, nurtures and appreciates him) is tainted by the knowledge that Dr Fornum would disapprove:
I met Marjory at fencing class, not at any of the social events for disabled people that Dr Fornum thinks I should go to. I don't tell Dr Fornum about fencing because she would worry about my violent tendencies, If laser-tag was enough to bother her, long pointed swords would send her into a panic.
There are so many striking, interesting, note-worthy elements in this book that, were I to discuss each time I inserted a flag this review would be almost as long as the novel itself. One of the aspects I flagged most often, apart from the multiple incidences where Lou has been remolded to better fit inside the parameters of 'normal,' is the presence of the neuroscience of autism.
Lou studies neurology and related fields to better understand the trial methodology and technique, discovering in the process not only a lot more about the way his perceptions operation and their similarities to other neurological conditions (like PTSD) but also how expectations of his abilities have directed and restricted his potential.
This is my second reading of Speed of Dark and, if anything, I enjoyed it more than on its 2003 release. I know that Lou is a rare exception, and that for the majority of people with autism this kind of independence of living, thought and employment are never going to be possible. Were an intervention that helped them process sensory cues better available I would be more conflicted about its use. This, though grounded in reality, is fiction, and it is the best kind - it enhances understanding of ourselves and others, prompts thought and introspection, offers a different perspective, and presents these aspects in a palatable, entertaining, engrossing form. I just wish I could read it again. - Alex

The Brain That Changes Itself - Norman Doidge

I can think of no better opening than Doidge's:

This book is about the revolutionary discovery that the human brain can can change itself, as told through the the stories of the scientists, doctors and patients who have together brought about these astonishing transformations.

Subtitled Stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of brain science, Doidge examines the work of a multitude of scientists who are, in separate areas of practice, overturning the long-held notion that the brain is hard wired and essentially immutable. Increasingly, says Doidge, we are discovering that the human brain is far more plastic, or mouldable, than we previously realised.
The copy I borrowed from a friend has tags sticking out from practically every page, and it's sadly beyond my ability to be able to convey all the aspects Doidge covers in this review. Instead I'll cite some of the sections that jumped out at or stuck with me, starting with senses we don't recognise we have until they're lost.
Doidge discusses the case of a woman who, as a result of treatment with gentamycin, an aminoglycoside antibiotic, lost her ability to maintain equilibrium - for five years she felt as though she was falling every waking moment, even if she was lying down. Related to proprioception (the awareness of how you're oriented in space and where your body parts are in relation to one another), equilibrioception is taken for granted by most of us. She reported thinking often of suicide, which is apparently not uncommon for sufferers of this condition. Doidge describes a revolutionary treatment that allowed her to recalibrate her spatial awareness using a complicated feedback system involving a helmet, tongue plate and oral sensations like fizzing champagne. The actual technique is too long to discuss here but fascinating, albeit considerably over my head. What's fascinating is that, with increased use of the treatment the woman had normal equilibrioception for increasing lengths of time when away from the treatment - despite permanent damage to her inner ear, and five years of altered function, she regained normal sensation.
I discovered the pioneering work of Paul Bach-y-Rita, a scientist and rehabilitation physician whose practice was informed by his father Pedro's recovery from what they later discovered was a significant stroke - contrary to most rehab practices Pedro taught himself how to walk again, beginning (as infants do) by crawling. Bach-y-Rita says "I can connect anything to anything" - new neurological pathways can be made via a multitude of circuits.
There are a number of other case studies and therapies discussed, from the Fast ForWord program that has had astonishing success with brain development conditions like autism to the way a shift from memorised or rote learning is linked with a variety of learning disabilities.
Doidge discusses new findings about the addictivity of internet pornography, which is apparently a real and significant phenomenon that causes significant changes in the way the brain is wired and operates. In an unrelated section I also learned that women are generally better than men at spatial recognition, which is why men can have trouble finding objects (like socks or things in the fridge) that are in plain sight.
At times controversial (there's a long section criticising animal rights association PETA), Doidge's message is clear throughout: the brain has far more potential than we believed; the impact of dementing illnesses can be reduced; and cross-fertilisation of ideas and disciplines is an essential component in advancing science - Doidge advocates unstructured early college courses for this reason. He revisits the well-trodden but still relevant issue of ideas that conflict with the dominant paradigm are ignored, ridiculed or doubted by the mainstream of scientists. In this case it's the revolutionary theory that challenged localisation theory, or the idea that neuro-specialisation is absolute, but he discusses other cases also.
Doidge also emphasises reality as culturally constructed - from the contemporary 'ew' factor of Elizabethan women keeping an unpeeled apple in their armpit for their lover, to cultural mores on when to interrupt someone speaking and how far away to stand - all of which is interesting to me as a social sciences student.
He looks at how the brain 'maps' activities, and how these maps can both limit normal function, and can be redrawn. Examples Doidge discusses include chronic pain and musicians losing the ability to move fingers independently - and be redrawn. Unlearning, he stresses, is harder than learning, but possible.
Neuroplasticity is far from a panacea for all neurological conditions, and research into it is still fledgling, but it's fascinating and inspiring, and I'm interested in seeing what happens next. I work in the neurosciences and am also interested in seeing how this will affect clinical practices, particularly as the work Doidge discusses takes place almost exclusively in the US. I do know that, if I sustain a severe neurological assault like a stroke I want to the centre Doidge recommends. - Alex

How Brains Think - William H Calvin

After a couple of quotes, Calvin opens his book, subtitled Evolving Intelligence, Now and Then, paraphrasing Piaget - "intelligence is what you use when you don't know what to do," a neat encapsulation of his central premise, which in part differentiates being smart from being intelligent.
Informed by a number of disciplines, including linguistics, neurosceinces, evolutionary biology, anthropology, sociology, war theory and (in the last section) computing and AI modelling, Calvin explores how evolutionary biology allowed human intelligence to emerge, as well as looking at where we might be headed.
I learned a number of fascinating facts, among them the difference in cortex size between a human, chimp, monkey and rat, and found the entire language section fascinating - since reading Oliver Sack's book about Deaf communities (Seeing Voices) I've had a strong but strictly amateur interest in linguistics and language development. Calvin examines how word order differs from language to language; the differences, similarities and evolution from pidgin and creole; and some developments in our understandings of linguistic competence and rules.
In this wide-ranging book he also investigates what's involved in solving novel problems, differentiating between intent and instinct (even when the latter looks complex and directed, as in bird song), and has a very interesting section on the construction of reality and how we fill in what's not that. In the process Calvin discusses a number of examples that nicely counterpoint the experiences described in Heathcote-James' After-Death Communication (I do like it when seemingly disparate elemnets intersect unexpectedly).
I was interested to discover that Calvin refers to those neurologists who model themselves after Australian neurophysiologist John Eccles as "ecclesiastical," which gives quite a different flavour to the description, though it doesn't leand anything to this review so I'll move on.
I found myself noting quotations, something I rarely do unless I'm reading for academic content in my other life. One articulates a concept I've been sensitised to since reading Stephen J Gould's fascinating history of the (often only allegedly) scientific examination of intelligence, about how what we expect colours what we find, and is of particular relevance to me as a research student:

We do not realise how deeply our starting assumptions affect the way we go about looking for and interpreting the data we collect. - Sue Savage-Rumbaugh 1994 (speaking of animal studies and prejudices)

Also of particular resonance was this:

I often find that a novel, even a well-written and compelling novel, can become a blur to me soon after I've finished reading it. I recollect perfectly the feeling of reading it, the mod I occupied, but I am less sure about the narrative details, It is almost as if the book were, as Wittgenstein said of his propositions, a ladder to be climbed and then discarded after it has served its purpose. - Sven Birkets 1994

I sadly read How Brains Think some time ago, and concluded it while I was unwell. I made notes about hand-mouth synergies, and that Calvin includes a nice summation of the requirements for Darwinian processes that is both clear and concise without omiting essential elements, but sadly can no longer flesh these out.
Sadly Calvin lost me in the last third of the book. I am unable to tell if this was because of my weakened state, recovering from a killer cold, or the denseness of the book, but based on the readablility and accessibility of the first two thirds of this impressive time I suspect the fault lies with the reader not the author. - Alex