Livewired

The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain

by David Eagleman

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Pub Date Aug 25 2020 | Archive Date Sep 13 2021

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group | Pantheon

Science

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Description

"Eagleman renders the secrets of the brain’s adaptability into a truly compelling page-turner.” —Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner

“Livewired reads wonderfully like what a book would be if it were written by Oliver Sacks and William Gibson, sitting on Carl Sagan’s front lawn.” —The Wall Street Journal

What does drug withdrawal have in common with a broken heart? Why is the enemy of memory not time but other memories? How can a blind person learn to see with her tongue, or a deaf person learn to hear with his skin? Why did many people in the 1980s mistakenly perceive book pages to be slightly red in color? Why is the world’s best archer armless? Might we someday control a robot with our thoughts, just as we do our fingers and toes? Why do we dream at night, and what does that have to do with the rotation of the Earth?

The answers to these questions are right behind our eyes. The greatest technology we have ever discovered on our planet is the three-pound organ carried in the vault of the skull. This book is not simply about what the brain is; it is about what it does. The magic of the brain is not found in the parts it’s made of but in the way those parts unceasingly reweave themselves in an electric, living fabric.

In Livewired, you will surf the leading edge of neuroscience atop the anecdotes and metaphors that have made David Eagleman one of the best scientific translators of our generation. Covering decades of research to the present day, Livewired also presents new discoveries from Eagleman’s own laboratory, from synesthesia to dreaming to wearable neurotech devices that revolutionize how we think about the senses.

"Eagleman renders the secrets of the brain’s adaptability into a truly compelling page-turner.” —Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner

“Livewired reads wonderfully like what a book would be if it...

A Note From the Publisher

Publicity contact: Emily Reardon (212) 572-2018 • ereardon@penguinrandomhouse.com. // Marketing contact: Sara Eagle (212) 572-21995 • seagle@penguinrandomhouse.com.

Advance Praise

PRAISE FOR DAVID EAGLEMAN :

“David Eagleman makes it easy to comprehend the most complex collection of cells in the Cosmos—our brain. If neuroscience had a rock legend, it would be him.” —Ruby Wax

“Eagleman has a talent for testing the untestable, for taking seemingly sophomoric notions and using them to nail down the slippery stuff of consciousness.” —The New Yorker

“Your mind is an elaborate trick, and mastermind David Eagleman explains how the trick works with great lucidity and amazement. Your mind will thank you.” —WIRED Magazine

“A popularizer of impressive gusto . . . [Eagleman] aims, grandly, to do for the study of the mind what Copernicus did for the study of the stars.” —The New York Observer

“Eagleman engagingly sums up recent discoveries about the unconscious processes that dominate our mental life . . . [He] is the kind of guy who really does make being a neuroscientist look like fun.” —The New York Times

PRAISE FOR DAVID EAGLEMAN :

“David Eagleman makes it easy to comprehend the most complex collection of cells in the Cosmos—our brain. If neuroscience had a rock legend, it would be him.” —Ruby Wax

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