The Idiot Brain Paperback – 24 May 2017

I liked the way the book is paced. The language used was simple and easy to understand. However there were some chapters that I had to read more than once. That might be because I am new to the terms. But I liked the way the author dispelled some of the common myths associated with the brain. Worth a read for the curious brain. No pun intended.

The Idiot Brain is one of its kind. I will highly recommend it for someone who want to know how amazing brain is while being stupid sometimes.

I might have been expecting too much from this book.It’s only a neuroscience 101 for people who don’t have much introductory knowledge to the subject. Readers expecting more technical scientific learning will not find much new to absorb that they don’t get from regular news sources and websites anyway.Still it’s nice to have this neuroscience refresher in one book for a quick study over but it did not interest long enough to keep reading at a binge. It was too easy to put down and not pick up, I soon switched to more challenging titles

If you want to know about quirkiness of brain.... this book is for you

Enjoyed reading this. The author is describing a complex subject as simply as one possibly can.

Good book. The copy i got was new and in good condition

Good!!! The context helps to understand several concept of human behavior and reason of their causes.

Amazing Book

A great book which I wasn’t able to finish having left it on a plane by mistake. Arrived promptly and although used is in great order. It’s a book, curled edges are to be expected and if so it shows it’s been well read and loved. Very pleased indeed, thanks. ☺️👍

I'm still reading it, but it's a very detailed book on many aspects of the human body, and the author is a little bit funny and adds a comedy tone to it. Very, very good.

Carrying out some 'research' (good old Google Wandering) I stumbled across 'Brain Flapping', Dean Burnett's blog at The Guardian. I found myself laughing at the words of a somewhat a-typical neuroscientist, and understanding them, too. No, really. And thus I picked up Burnett's first book: The Idiot Brain. I expected to dip in and out, be amused for ten minutes, and need a lie down for the next, but not so. I read it in two days.This is a book about how the brain works, with its heavy emphasis on it not being as clever as we've been brought up to think. OK, our brain is clever, very clever to cope with the 21st century demands on it, but it's also full of clutter, the detritus of evolutionary development from a pre-stone age brain. Sometimes, often, it hiccups.Burnett describes the brain's workings in a simple, logical and yet imaginative way – not easy to do I'm sure. It's also a very comforting read. Now that it's been explained, I feel vindicated for remembering everything about someone except their name. It's also OK to get angry sometimes. In fact, it's really rather good, particularly if your reputation and social standing are at risk. Self-doubt? It's a social skill. Even Einstein thought that his intelligence was fake and that one day he would be found out.And beware if you pride yourself on your debating skills. There's a whole section on why it's often less intelligent people, or the uninformed, who win the arguments. Just saying.Memory has always fascinated me – why one person can have a cabinet of quiz trophies but not remember their partner's birthday, or vice versa – so I was particularly interested in the long sections on this.Were you aware, for instance, that our short term memory is, at most, one minute long? For up to sixty seconds we can, at best, remember four measly items. Four! If our brain decides we need the items for longer, then it might consider moving them into our long-term memory but not without significant effort. There are ways we can boost the volume of short term memory, constructing random words into a sentence or mnemonic, for example, because one sentence, as opposed to one word, can count as one of your four remembered items. But even then, the short term memory is pretty limited. Another comfort. It explains why we can wander into a room and forget what possessed us to go there in the first place. En route, something much more important to survival swooped into the tally of remembered items and out ranked the empty cup you'd clocked when you passed with your arms full of washing. But no need to panic. If the reason you ran into the room was to escape a wild boar, you would remember to close the door behind you and wouldn’t wander off instead to make the beds. It's a restricted brain, an Idiot Brain, but it's very good at survival.I loved this book. I felt like I was effortlessly learning a little about a fascinating field of which I'm pretty ignorant. The anecdotal style of writing kept me amused - I heard that Dean Burnett does a bit of stand-up and that doesn't surprise me. And I'm relieved to learn that my brain's idiotic catastrophic misses, are simply the product of the 21st century's messy brain.If you'd like to understand a little more about what it is to be human but don't have the time or inclination to return to study, this one's for you.

Well written, easy to understand and at times very funny. Full of fascinating information in a digestible form that doesn't require a degree in neuroscience!Overall a very good book and well worth buying.The only slightly off-putting thing is Dean Burnett is his far left view. Which for some will be a bonus and reason for buying!Thankfully the books editors have taken out his more extreme views* seen on the social media - so apart from a few negative remarks about white men his super right on attitude is not seen too much in the book.* Note "extreme views" is a rather personal opinion - what I see as extreme you might see as not extreme enough!For example Dean suggests the psychology profession is too white and too male. And yet the British Psychological Society 2016 stats show in the UK the percentage of female to male registered psychologists is around 80% female to 20% male. And he considers that too male??!Is that an extreme view? I think so but you may disagree.Another example is when he discusses the fascinating topic of "groupthink" and how this reduces individual rational thought and pushes groups of people to irrational extremes. His examples - as throughout the book - are of this negative phenomena leading to extreme right wing views. Personally I believe groupthink can lead to extreme views of left and right. I guess Dean's not read 1984 - the perfect example of left wing group think.Anyway political bias is a bug bear of mine but regardless of political view point this book is a good read and I've not reduced the star rating. Hopefully his explanation of the brain is not distorted by his political views - I know so little about the neuroscience so can't comment on this.

This had been chosen as my latest bookclub book. It was thought to be a light introduction to science. The blurb describes a few situations that felt very familiar, when our brain seems to let us down. Maybe it would be interesting to find out why.There are lots of technical terms but they are all introduced in a way which gives context without ever patronising the reader (well it didn't patronise me!).Some sections were much more interesting to me than others (for example my attention wandered off while reading about superstitions but came back when the narrative turned to phobias) but that is to be expected in a nonfiction book. Whenever I lost focus, I would skim a few paragraphs and everytime I was quickly pulled back in.I found it to be a very accessible read with many of the theories clarifying my existing beliefs and knowledge. This meant that I was comfortable with the new information that I picked up from the author and believed his opinions with little cynicism. I also felt very relaxed with his chatty style where we seems to address the reader as an individual.There was many studies quoted to back up the theories and to explain how the theories evolved in the first place - some of these I already knew (e.g. the Stanford prisoner experiment) but many were new to me.Having finished it I have found myself quoting various sections to people I talk to which means it must have sunk in. I think I would like to read it again sometime as I suspect that my memory could do with a refresher.