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HAPPY BRAIN

Name: HAPPY BRAIN
Author: Dean Burnett
ISBN: 978-0-393-65134-8

WHERE HAPPINESS COMES FROM, AND WHY

by Dean Burnett ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 29, 2018

There’s nothing earthshaking in Burnett’s observations, but he offers a pleasing tour of the brain and its feel-good...

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Entertaining exploration of the neurophysiological basis for Aristotle’s most prized state of being: happiness.

To give a human a happy brain, give him or her lots of dopamine or some of the other chemicals we secrete in dosages far above what morphine can deliver. By the account of neuroscientist and stand-up comic Burnett (Medical Education/Cardiff Univ.; Idiot Brain: What Your Head Is Really Up To, 2016, etc.), setting those natural endorphins into motion is the trick. The author sometimes tries too hard to unburden heavy scientific exposition with some gee-whiz efforts at lightheartedness. Still, he delivers meaty, even weighty observations on the gray-matter gymnastics that, for instance, make us fall in love with awful people and, to all appearances to the outside world, allow us to content ourselves with that choice by blinding us to the reality. Burnett’s description of the neurochemistry of love and its affiliated emotions (“it may not be as pleasurable as sex, but it’s a lot less effort too”) is worth the price of admission. So, too, is his depiction of the emotional workings of the adolescent and then, later, the aging brain, when the reward pathways mature in such a way that some of the things that formerly brought us pleasure seem quaint and silly—a process that we share with rats and other primates. Burnett is at his funniest when he is subtle: “older people voting en masse to recreate the quasi-fictional romanticised world of the past doesn’t really do much good for anyone (see ‘Brexit’).” The book is at its best when the author points to obvious conclusions without being too obvious about it: If what makes us happiest in the end is the approval of others, it’s plain to see, on that account, why those who are widely disapproved of are so miserable.

There’s nothing earthshaking in Burnett’s observations, but he offers a pleasing tour of the brain and its feel-good longings.

Pub Date: May 29, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-393-65134-8

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: March 18, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018

Categories:

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | PSYCHOLOGY | SELF-HELP

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MASTERY

by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 13, 2012

Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...

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Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.

The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.

Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.

Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012

Categories:

PSYCHOLOGY | SELF-HELP

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THE RIGHT STUFF

by Tom Wolfe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 24, 1979

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Yes: it's high time for a de-romanticized, de-mythified, close-up retelling of the U.S. Space Program's launching—the inside story of those first seven astronauts.

But no: jazzy, jivey, exclamation-pointed, italicized Tom Wolfe "Mr. Overkill" hasn't really got the fight stuff for the job. Admittedly, he covers all the ground. He begins with the competitive, macho world of test pilots from which the astronauts came (thus being grossly overqualified to just sit in a controlled capsule); he follows the choosing of the Seven, the preparations for space flight, the flights themselves, the feelings of the wives; and he presents the breathless press coverage, the sudden celebrity, the glorification. He even throws in some of the technology. But instead of replacing the heroic standard version with the ring of truth, Wolfe merely offers an alternative myth: a surreal, satiric, often cartoony Wolfe-arama that, especially since there isn't a bit of documentation along the way, has one constantly wondering if anything really happened the way Wolfe tells it. His astronauts (referred to as "the brethren" or "The True Brothers") are obsessed with having the "right stuff" that certain blend of guts and smarts that spells pilot success. The Press is a ravenous fool, always referred to as "the eternal Victorian Gent": when Walter Cronkite's voice breaks while reporting a possible astronaut death, "There was the Press the Genteel Gent, coming up with the appropriate emotion. . . live. . . with no prompting whatsoever!" And, most off-puttingly, Wolfe presumes to enter the minds of one and all: he's with near-drowing Gus Grissom ("Cox. . . That face up there!—it's Cox. . . Cox knew how to get people out of here! . . . Cox! . . ."); he's with Betty Grissom angry about not staying at Holiday Inn ("Now. . . they truly owed her"); and, in a crude hatchet-job, he's with John Glenn furious at Al Shepard's being chosen for the first flight, pontificating to the others about their licentious behavior, or holding onto his self-image during his flight ("Oh, yes! I've been here before! And I am immune! I don't get into corners I can't get out of! . . . The Presbyterian Pilot was not about to foul up. His pipeline to dear Lord could not be clearer"). Certainly there's much here that Wolfe is quite right about, much that people will be interested in hearing: the P-R whitewash of Grissom's foul-up, the Life magazine excesses, the inter-astronaut tensions. And, for those who want to give Wolfe the benefit of the doubt throughout, there are emotional reconstructions that are juicily shrill.

But most readers outside the slick urban Wolfe orbit will find credibility fatally undermined by the self-indulgent digressions, the stylistic excesses, and the broadly satiric, anti-All-American stance; and, though The Right Stuff has enough energy, sass, and dirt to attract an audience, it mostly suggests that until Wolfe can put his subject first and his preening writing-persona second, he probably won't be a convincing chronicler of anything much weightier than radical chic.