Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge #16: Read a book based solely on the title.

The brain is a funny thing. It’s an approximately 3 pound squiggly ball of flesh that controls everything in your entire body. The only way that you are able to read these words is because of your brain. Even if your eyes are visually capable of seeing the world around you, if it is not effectively communicated to the brain, then what you see is meaningless.

This book is equal parts fascinating and terrifying. The clinical tales described within tell us of patients the author has encountered as a neurologist (aka a brain doctor). These are real stories of real people.

Here are just a few of the things your brain can do to you…

1. Convince yourself that your wife is indeed a hat and cause you to attempt to pull her head off with your bare hands so that you can place the “hat” on your head.
2. Delete 30 years of your life like it never happened.
3. Leave you unable to move any part of your body unless you are actively looking at it.
4. Tell you that your leg is not really your leg. It is instead the severed leg of a cadaver that is now attached to your body and must be removed as soon as possible.

That is not even all of the experiences of all of the patients. There is more in this book. So much more.

I have never understood so much more about the human condition while simultaneously understanding less.

There are some words in this book that required me to pause, either to look them up in a dictionary or to piece together their meaning through context. But, boy, is it fascinating. And I am learning so much. I think?

If you are also fascinated by the human brain, human psychology, or how our meat suits function on a day to day basis, then you will enjoy this book.