Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life [Paperback]

In this nationally bestselling, compulsively readable account of what makes brain science a vital component of people's quest to know themselves, acclaimed science writer Steven Johnson subjects his own brain to a battery of tests to find out what's really going on inside. He asks:

• How do we read other people?
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• What is the neurochemistry behind love and sex?
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• What does it mean that the brain is teeming with powerful chemicals closely related to recreational drugs?
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• Why does music move us to tears?
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• Where do breakthrough ideas come from?

Johnson answers these and many more questions arising from the events of our everyday lives. You do not have to be a neuroscientist to wonder, for example, why do you smile? And why do you sometimes smile inappropriately, even if you don't want to? How do others read your inappropriate smile? How does such interplay occur neurochemically, and what, if anything, can you do about it?
Fascinating and rewarding,Mind Wide Openspeaks to brain buffs, self-obsessed neurotics, barstool psychologists, mystified parents, grumpy spouses, exasperated managers, and anyone who enjoys speculating and gossiping about the motivations and behaviors of other human beings. Steven Johnson shows us the transformative power of understanding brain science and offers new modes of introspection and tools for better parenting, better relationships, and better living. Mind Wide Openis a lucid and engaging travelogue from the frontiers of human brain science.
-- Steven Pinker, author ofThe Blank SlateandHow the Mind Works Celebrates the brain's complexity and wonder even as it demonstrates that you can get to know your mind better than you ever thought.
-- Kirkus Reviews