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book cover for Dark and Magical Places

Dark and Magical Places

The Neuroscience of Navigation

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Pub Date Jan 25 2022 | Archive Date Dec 31 2021


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Description

An illuminating examination of how the brain helps us to understand and navigate space—and why, sometimes, it doesn’t work the way it should.

Navigation is one of the most complex tasks our brains perform. And we do it countless times a day—as we drive across town to the airport, or traverse the maze of a supermarket, or walk within our own homes. But why is it that some people are lost on their own street and others can seamlessly navigate a new city after visiting it once?

Fueled by his own spatial shortcomings, Christopher Kemp describes the brain regions that orient us in space and the specialized neurons—place cells and grid cells—that do it. He explains how the brain plans routes, recognizes landmarks, and makes sure we leave a room through a door instead of a painting. Along the way, he meets the scientists trying to understand the mental maps of modern humans, and Neanderthals, and lost people everywhere. Dark and Magical Places is an informed and entertaining journey into the mysteries of the mind.

An illuminating examination of how the brain helps us to understand and navigate space—and why, sometimes, it doesn’t work the way it should.

Navigation is one of the most complex tasks our brains...


Advance Praise

"Chris Kemp may not be able to find his way out of a stairwell, but he has quickly and with no false turns made his way to the top of my list of favorite science writers. For all his navigational shortcomings, Kemp is an expert guide to the most complex landscape of all: the human brain. He's a natural storyteller, a deft explainer, and a terrific and funny writer." - Mary Roach, author of Gulp

"Christopher Kemp’s brilliant and beguiling new book reveals that behind the curtain of the seemingly quotidian act of traversing space lies an array of intricate neuroscientific magic tricks, temporal feats of strength, hiccups, and elusive mysteries that only the human brain can contain.... Like the brain itself, Kemp’s wild writing quakes and sparks, uncovering the lyric lurking in the neuroscientific, the hilarious in the incantatory." - Matthew Gavin Frank, author of Flight of the Diamond Smugglers

"Christopher Kemp’s captivating exploration of the brain’s hippocampus and its seemingly magical powers will alter the way you see and move through the world. As both scientist and scribe, Kemp brings his gifts of curiosity and intelligence to bear on the topic of navigation and shows us that there is no shame in being lost. On the contrary, Kemp demonstrates that to be continuously and authentically in search of our place on earth is a wondrous thing." - M. R. O’Connor, author of Wayfinding

"As a person who often finds myself lost in cities and forests alike, I was thrilled to discover this book, a dazzling—at times dizzying—exploration of brains and places, how they trouble one another and how they a give one another meaning." - Robert Moor, bestselling author of On Trails

"A fascinating and sneakily amusing book.... Christopher Kemp is an elegant and quick-witted writer who, feeling perpetually and hopelessly lost himself, is perfectly qualified to lead us through some of the most complicated and discombobulating corners of human cognition." - John Mooallem, author of This is Chance!

"Chris Kemp may not be able to find his way out of a stairwell, but he has quickly and with no false turns made his way to the top of my list of favorite science writers. For all his navigational...


Available Editions

EDITION Hardcover
ISBN 9781324005384
PRICE $26.95 (USD)

Average rating from 6 members


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