An informal, highly accessible tour of neuroscience for general readers.
A professor of neuroscience, psychology, and linguistics examines how our brains inspire individual behaviors, thoughts, and actions.
During the first year of the pandemic, Prat, along with millions of others, traded her daily routine for the “pervasive anxiety” of quarantine. The stressful situation inspired the author to delve deeper into individual brain operation and management. The result is a fascinating reverse-engineered exploration of brain design and how methods of thought and behavior are unique to each individual, creating “the story of you.” Prat begins with an informative, congenial introduction to the numerous internal “design features” driving the two “lopsided” sides of our brains and how this asymmetry (along with outside chemicals like caffeine or prescription drugs) shapes its complex neurochemistry. She addresses how the largely “misunderstood” connection between nature and nurture actually creates habit-driven personalities and identities. Moving into how outward factors influence brainpower, Prat details how a brain adapts to changing or challenging environments and how those factors affect one’s ability to focus and create an “understanding of reality through a lens shaped by your life experiences.” The author also includes a series of hands-on evaluative “assessments” for readers who want to tailor her explanations to their own brain design. One evaluation can help a reader determine if they are “a chooser or an avoider.” Furthermore, Prat sheds new light on contemporary research on topics like the “biological pretzel that is epigenetics,” a discipline that can show, for example, how “environmental experiences can create chemical changes in our DNA.” Numerous candidly written footnotes add comedic flair to the narrative, which will be appreciated by readers eager but intimidated to learn how and why their brains generate thoughts, feelings, and decision-making patterns. While Prat doesn’t aim to provide specific diagnoses for mental illnesses, she shines a positive light on how the brain operates from the inside out and from the outside in.
An informal, highly accessible tour of neuroscience for general readers.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4660-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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