I still read non-fiction texts on neuroscience, psychology and medicine to keep learning and because these subjects will forever fascinate me. I enjoy being immersed in characters and places from another time and, when done well, to marvel at the extensive research the author did to build such seamless believability. But historical fiction tends to captivate me the most. I read contemporary fiction to keep refining my craft, and because I love a great story. These days, I read a little of everything and always two or three books at once. Phantom limbs, synesthesia, the evolution of language, the underpinnings of empathy, art appreciation, a sense of self: How do our brains allow us to perceive, understand, interact with, and enjoy the world around us? I find these questions as intriguing as the theories and answers. I also loved The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human by V.S. Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman is a thrilling tour through the conscious and subconscious mind, left and right brain, the perceptual versus the real world. Stunning and eloquent, Bauby’s words still haunt me. His body a prison, his mind nonetheless remained sharply intact.

Jean-Dominque Bauby wrote The Diving Bell and the Butterfly one painstaking wink at a time after a massive brain-stem stroke left him completely paralyzed but for his left eye. I continued to love books that explore the relationship between brain, perception, identity and behavior. In examining the person with disease, we gain wisdom about life.” This is what I hope I do with my writing. Oliver Sacks wrote, “In examining disease, we gain wisdom about anatomy and physiology and biology. How do our brains work to allow us to think, feel, remember, desire, empathize, laugh, love, walk and talk? I find this infinitely fascinating. I’d known that I wanted to be a biologist, but taking that course and reading this book sharpened my focus and ignited my passion for neuroscience.

Told with compassion and an infectious curiosity about how the mind works, this book is a collection of case studies describing real patients with extraordinary neurological impairments. I was in college, taking a course in physiological psychology, when I first read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks.

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