Science.

NONFICTION

Proust Was a Neuroscientist

By Jonah Lehrer

A bridge between modern science and the arts.

"In the stuffy silence of his Parisian studio, [Marcel Proust] listened so intently to his sentimental brain that he discovered how it operated." So argues Jonah Lehrer, who in this fascinating debut argues that eight 19th- and 20th-century artists envisioned 21st-century breakthroughs in the field of neuroscience. Proust discerned the instability and inaccuracy of memory. Paul Cezanne reproduced on his canvases the inner workings of the visual cortex. Gertrude Stein's prose anticipated the work of Noam Chom-sky, while Virginia Woolf charted the terrain of the conscious mind. Icons such as Igor Stravinsky, George Eliot, Walt Whitman, and Auguste Escoffier instinctively knew what scientists are only now able to prove, suggesting that the gap between science and the arts may not be as wide as we think.

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Houghton Mifflin. 256 pages. $24. ISBN: 0618620109

Los Angeles Times ****

"Looked at one way, Proust Was a Neuroscientist is a lucid summary of the brain as seen by contemporary neuroscience; looked at again, it is an inspired interpretation of the work of eight 19th and 20th century artists and writers whose insights, Lehrer claims, anticipated our current understanding. In lesser hands, this argument would be merely tendentious, but Lehrer's command of his material is so complete that he persuasively makes his case with scientific acuity and aesthetic sensitivity."

JESSE COHEN

Minneapolis Star Tribune ****

"At the age of 25 (!) [Lehrer] has written a dazzling yet always accessible book blending literary criticism and neuroscience. ... This exhilarating book will give you much to think about and make you feel good about your endlessly innovative brain."

BRIGITTE FRASE

San Francisco Chronicle ****

"Lehrer is a capable scientific popularizer, rendering the recent spate of discoveries about the complexity of the human brain comprehensible to laymen. While Proust devotes equal time to art and science, Lehrer will probably prove of more interest to humanities geeks interested in moving beyond A Brief History of Time."

SAUL AUSTERLITZ

Entertainment Weekly ***

"Each of Lehrer's chapters is devoted to one artist, and gets a tad predictable (e.g., Woolf thought the self was an illusion? Later neuroscientists backed her up!). ... But Lehrer writes skillfully and coherently about both art and science--no small feat."

GREGORY KIRSCHLING

NY Times Book Review ***

"Lehrer is smart, and there are some fun moments in these pages. ... At the same time, I'm not sure all his conclusions follow from his data."

D.T. MAX

Cleveland Plain Dealer **

"Why reduce so much marvelous complexity--how the brain works, Proust's prose, the nature of smell, the creative process, the scientific method--to a cause-and-effect hypothesis? ... Both science and art lose out in this book."

ANNE TRUBEK

CRITICAL SUMMARY

Jonah Lehrer, a Rhodes scholar working in the lab of a Nobel Prize--winning neuroscientist, was participating in experiments on the nature of memory while reading Proust's Swann's Way. He was amazed to find that the author had predicted his scientific findings nearly a century earlier. This epiphany inspired Lehrer to reexamine other great works of art. This highly readable book generally engaged and enlightened critics; Lehrer writes competently despite his "graduate-student earnestness" (Cleveland Plain Dealer). A few critics felt that some conclusions were strained and some generalizations did a disservice to the very fields they were meant to illuminate; however, most considered Lehrer's arguments compelling and persuasive. If not all critics bought Lehrer's claims, his book nonetheless "marks the arrival of an important new thinker" (Los Angeles Times).

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****

Your Inner Fish

A Journey into 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body

By Neil Shubin

Know your roots. And your gills.

People usually talk about the human body teleologically. "Why do we have lungs?" "So we can breathe." "Why is the heart built like a pump?" "To move the blood around the body." But these sorts of questions and answers don't really explain the way we are, since we ultimately descend from a fish that was doing just fine without lungs and from some earlier, bloodless creatures that didn't need hearts. The concept of evolution is difficult to understand, but Neil Shubin, a paleontologist and anatomy professor, makes it more intelligible in this evolutionary guide to the human body and anatomical journey back in time. Shubin finds that the natural way to explain the forms and functions of the human body is by looking at our evolutionary predecessors. The result is a work that helps his students and his readers better understand our place in the scheme of life.

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Pantheon. 240 pages. $24. 0375424474

Financial Times ****

"If you want to understand the evolutionary history of man and other animals, and read no other account this year, read this splendid monograph. ... Shubin's book is packed with the evidence to support his contention that everything innovative or apparently unique in the history of life 'is really just old stuff that has been recycled, recombined, repurposed or otherwise modified for new uses.'"

ALAN CANE

Los Angeles Times ****

"A delightful introduction to our skeletal structure, viscera and other vital parts--and evidence that learning the secrets of the human body need not unhinge you. ... When he tells the thrilling story of coming upon the fossil remains of Tiktaalik in the Arctic wilderness, where anything that might be mistaken for a polar bear ... sends him scurrying, we share his sense of triumph."

JESSE COHEN

San Diego Union-Tribune ****

"A remarkably enthusiastic and easy-to-read explanation of evolution described through the synthesis of paleontology, developmental genetics and genomics (the study of genes). ... Shubin presents his arguments creatively and concisely, tackling sometimes profound questions about origins and evolution directly, even humorously. The evidence mounts, chapter after chapter."

SCOTT LAFEE

CRITICAL SUMMARY

Neil Shubin, Professor of Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago, made headlines in April 2006 with his discovery of a 375-million-year-old fossil called Tiktaalik, the missing link between ancient sea creatures and land dwellers. The reviewers, mostly science writers, embraced Shubin's popular science book, which offers a new perspective on evolution, a subject on which most people feel like they've already made up their minds. While many Americans doubt Darwinism, hardly anyone discounts anatomy, so it is a logical place to reopen the debate. All critics agreed that Shubin, with his clear examples and explanations, makes (yet another) convincing argument. A few critics, in fact, were so excited by it that they seemed ready to enroll in Shubin's anatomy course themselves.

INDEX

AGENT ZIGZAG                                        62

A True story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and
Betrayal
By Ben Macintyre

AMERICAN CREATION                                   61

Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of
the Republic
By Joseph J. Ellis

AMERICAN TRANSCENDENTALISM                          62

A History
By Philip F. Gura

BEETHOVEN WAS ONE-SIXTEENTH BLACK                   45

And Other Stories
By Nadine Gordimer

BLEEDING KANSAS                                     46

By Sara Paretsky

BORN STANDING UP                                    56

A Comic's Life
By Steve Martin

BREAKFAST WITH BUDDHA                               38

By Roland Merullo

DAY                                                 47

By A. L. Kennedy

THE DEPORTEES AND OTHER STORIES!                    34

By Roddy Doyle

DIARY OF A BAD YEAR                                 40

By J. M. Coetzee

DUMA KEY                                            50

By Stephen King

THE FALL OF TROY                                    41

By Peter Ackroyd

FIELDWORK                                           35

By Mischa Berlinski

THE GEOGRAPHY OF BLISS                              53

One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places
in the World
By Eric Weiner

THE GHOST                                           36

By Robert Harris

GODS BEHAVING BADLY                                 42

By Marie Phillips

A GOLDEN AGE                                        43

By Tahmima Anam

HALTING STATE                                       50

By Charles Stross

THE HEARTS OF HORSES                                37

By Molly Gloss

HOMECOMING                                          47

By Bernhard Schlink, translated from the German by
Michael Henry Heim

IN DEFENSE OF FOOD                                  52

An Eater's Manifesto
By Michael Pollan

A LAND SO STRANGE                                   64

The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca
By Andres Resendez

THE LAST CHICKEN IN AMERICA                         36

A Novel in Stories
By Ellen Litman

LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER                           41

By Stewart O'Nan

LIFE CLASS                                          44

By Pat Barker

A LIFE OF PICASSO                                   56

The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932
By John Richardson

LITTLE HEATHENS                                     58

Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa
Farm During the Great Depression
By Mildred Armstrong Kalish

MARCO POLO                                          57

From Venice to Xanadu
By Laurence Bergreen

NUREYEV                                             59

The Life
By Julie Kavanagh

THE ORDEAL OF ELIZABETH MARSH                       59

A Woman in World History
By Linda Colley

PEOPLE OF THE BOOK                                  30

By Geraldine Brooks

A PIGEON AND A BOY                                  38

By Meir Shalev, translated from the Hebrew by Evan
Fallenberg

POSTSINGULAR                                        52

By Rudy Rucker

POWERS                                              51

By Ursula K. Le Guin

PROUST WAS A NEUROSCIENTIST                         65

By Jonah Lehrer

THE SENATOR'S WIFE                                  33

By Sue Miller

THE SHOCK DOCTRINE                                  54

The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
By Naomi Klein

SIGNED, MATA HARI                                   39

By Yannick Murphy

SOLDIER'S HEART                                     55

Reading Literature Through Peace and War
at West Point
By Elizabeth D. Samet

T IS FOR TRESPASS                                   48

By Sue Grafton

THE TELEPHONE GAMBIT                                63

Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret
By Seth Shulman

THE TENTH MUSE                                      60

My Life in Food
By Judith Jones

THEM                                                45

By Nathan McCall

WATCHMAN                                            49

By Ian Rankin

WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT                               65

The Transformation of America, 1815-1848
By Daniel Walker Howe

YOUR INNER FISH                                     66

A Journey into 3.5-Billion-Year History of the
Human Body
By Neil Shubin

ZEROVILLE                                           43
By Steve Erickson