What I'm reading ...

I have started The Speed of Light by Elissa Grossell Dickey. Time for fiction again. I have no idea how I came to have this book, but it looks interesting. Here’s the blurb:

Simone is trying her best not to think of what she’s lost. Diagnosed with MS, she awaits the results of another anxiety-inducing MRI. She’s just walked away from Connor, “a fixer” but possibly the love of her life. And nearing the holidays, the sights and sounds of winter in South Dakota only prick memories of better years gone by. Then, on a December morning at the university where she works, jarring gunshots pierce the halls. In a temporary safe place and terrified, Simone listens and pretends this will all be over soon.

As she waits for silence, her mind racing, Simone’s past year comes into focus. Falling in love and missing it. Finding strength in family and enduring friendships. Planning for the future, fearing it, and hoping against hope in dark places. Her life has been changing at the speed of light, and each crossroad brought Simone here, to this day, to endure the things she can’t control and to confront those that she can.

Embracing the Wide Sky: A tour across the horizons of the mind - by Daniel Tammet

This book was an enjoyable read. As billed, it is mainly about the neuroscience around Savants etc. However, his illustrations are often quite detailed and cover many other interesting [to me] topics.

What I'm reading ...

I have started Embracing the Wide Sky: A tour across the horizons of the mind by Daniel Tammet. I seem to be in a bit of a “brain science groove” just lately. Having read this author’s first book, I thought that this might be interesting. Here’s the blurb:

Daniel's internationally bestselling memoir of living with Asperger's Syndrome and Savant Syndrome, Born on a Blue Day established him as one of the most original talents in contemporary non-fiction.

Now, in his new book, Embracing the Wide Sky, he combines meticulous scientific research with detailed descriptions of how his mind works to demonstrate the immense potential within us all. He explains how our natural intuitions can help us to learn a foreign language, why his memories are like symphonies, and what numbers and giraffes have in common. We also discover why there is more to intelligence than IQ, how our brains turn light to sight, and why too much information can make you stupid.

He illustrates his arguments with examples as diverse as the private languages of twins, the compositions of poets with autism, and the breakthroughs, and breakdowns, of some of history’s greatest minds.

Embracing the Wide Sky is a unique and brilliantly imaginative portrait of how we think, learn, remember and create, brimming with personal insights and anecdotes, and explanations of the most up-to-date, mind-bending discoveries from fields ranging from neuroscience to psychology and linguistics.

This is a profound and provocative book that will transform our understanding and respect for every kind of mind.

Wish You Were Here - by Jodi Picoult

I had high hopes this for this book and I was not even slightly disappointed - it was, IMHO, a cracking read.

Without spoiling the surprise, the “But not everything is as it seems . . .” in the blurb is an understatement; around the middle of the book is an amazing U-turn that almost made me gasp with surprise. It is the kind of book that could have had a predictable ending or just petered out, but that is not the JP style. The ending is a work of genius: a full stop made up of a couple of sentences.

Through the book there is much detail on COVID and its treatment. Knowing that the author does very thorough research, I am confident that I have learned stuff. There is also much discussion on the psychological effects of the pandemic, much of which sounded familiar to me.

I discovered that JP has written something like 27 novels and I have only read about three. The feeling that there is so much more of her work for me to get lost in is exactly what makes reading such a source of joy.