A Book a Week: Phantoms in the Brain

A few weeks ago, a good friend and mentor of mine said that she could imagine me becoming a neurologist.  Her assessment was based completely on my personality (not my interests or anything that I'm actually particularly good at) and she also suggested ophthalmology and rheumatology.  However, I don't own any pop-science books on opthalmology or rheumatology, so I am exploring neurology first.

Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind by V.S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee explores questions of consciousness, memory, perception and self through the science of the brain.  Through analysis of the symptoms when something goes awry (most often due to head trauma or a stroke), neurologists are able to deduce the function and mechanisms of the human brain.  This book has just the right balance of technical terms (with further clarifications in the endnotes), humor, and philosophical ramblings to make a lovely read.  It is an older book, from 1999, so I expect that some of the theories have either been disproved or further explored by this point, but I am sure it is still fairly accurate.

Recommended for those with interests in science and philosophy.