Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain

from kristykay22

This book explores what the unnatural act of learning to read does to our brains, how that has affected human culture, and what is going on in the brains of people who have trouble putting together all the complicated cerebral processes of reading. Wolf's writing is accessible and her experience ...

from wandering_star

Brains are amazing. One of the most fascinating aspects of modern neuroscience (for a pop-science consumer like me) is that we are increasingly learning that things which seem very simple can actually involve multiple parts of the brain working in co-ordination. Apparently Capgrass syndrome, in w...

from RandyMetcalfe

Our brains are not designed for reading. So it may seem remarkable that over thousands of years we gradually developed symbols and the rules for manipulating them that constitute a written language. Despite the fact that reading is not a natural ability, we obviously must gain a huge advantage th...

from judiparadis

Loved this book on the "science of reading." Wolf, a professor at Tufts, delves into how reading shapes our brains and our thinking by looking at the evolution of reading and how it changed both our ability to order society and think independently, and how it actually shaped our brain development...

from keely_chace

Wow! I loved this book. Read it and be amazed at your incredible reading brain--even if you were someone who had a heck of a time learning to read. I especially liked the parallels Wolf draws between Socrates' objections to the transition, from the oral culture of ancient Greece, to the reading c...