Building Left-Brain Power: Left-Brain Conditioning Exercises and Tips to Strengthen Language, Math and Uniquely Human Skills [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Allen D. Bragdon (Author), David Gamon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1999

An entertaining interactive program designed to increase the power of practical language, computational, and mental skills essential to professional and personal success. Includes reports of recent discoveries in the neurosciences with more than 100 tips to help improce performance in real-world problem-solving situations. 14 different formats of progressively more difficult mental-conditioning exercises activate positive-response brain circuits to build neuron-strength and improve mood. Just as physical exercises build muscle groups, they gradually develop skills used in executive, planning, vocabulary, computational calculations, and logical deduction. 5 self-scoring tests measure status. Developed by Games magazine's founder.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Allen D. Bragdon is the founding editor of Games magazine, editor of the New York Times "Playspace" puzzle column, and co-author with David Gamon of "Building Mental Muscle" and "How Sharp is Your Pencil?" David Gamon, PhD, holds advanced degrees in the Cognitive Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley.

ADDITIONAL TITLES BY THE AUTHORS
Building Mental Muscle
Exercises for the Whole Brain
Right Brain Teasers
How Sharp is Your Pencil

Product Details

• Paperback: 311 pages
• Publisher: Brainwaves Books; 1st edition (August 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0916410633
• ISBN-13: 978-0916410636
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #823,015 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Teaches you how to think logically..., May 5, 2002

By 

TonyD "[e-mail]" (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building Left-Brain Power: Left-Brain Conditioning Exercises and Tips to Strengthen Language, Math and Uniquely Human Skills (Paperback)

Building Left-Brain Power is somewhat of a bittersweet book because of it's inconsistency throughout the entire book. The
book begins with "easy" logic puzzles such as unscrambling words
and such and ends with the hardest logic puzzles which are
code-breakers.

The book provides a preface at the beginning of most chapters
to give you help in trying to find a logical way of thinking to
tackle a particular problem. This quality I found to be unique
and very valuable as opposed to most books with logic puzzles
just poured in there and leave you frustrated because you can't
figure them out.

Here's what's horrible about this book though. There are type-o's
in the answer keys (which I was amazed at how terribly obvious
they were considering they were not caught before publication). I only spotted two obvious ones though.

The other thing that drove me nuts was that there was no logic
whatsoever to explaining how they arrived at some of their
answers. Many times, I gave other people the problem to look at
WITH the answer that I had looked up and asked them to figure
out how they came up with that answer...no one knew. Was it
another type-o? No clue.

This book has some great qualities, and some terrible qualities
which I thought averaged it out to a 2.5 star book, however, I
rounded up because of the very inexpensive price.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars UNBELIEVABLY GOOD!, February 21, 2001

By 

kira (the boonies, SC, USofA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building Left-Brain Power: Left-Brain Conditioning Exercises and Tips to Strengthen Language, Math and Uniquely Human Skills (Paperback)

I am currently using the book "Building Left-Brain Power" in my homeschooling activities, and was planning to complete one chapter per week with my 10-year-old daughter Jasmine, but she loves this book too much to put it down! We started on Monday and have already finished 2 chapters. I'm really looking forward to the number exercises. I love math, and can see that all three of my kids will do really well if we continue using the same type of challenging exercises together in school.

~kira
homeschooler and mother of 3

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars UNBELIEVABLY GOOD, February 21, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Building Left-Brain Power: Left-Brain Conditioning Exercises and Tips to Strengthen Language, Math and Uniquely Human Skills (Paperback)

I am currently using the book "Building Left-Brain Power" in my homeschooling activities, and was planning to complete one chapter per week with my 10-year-old daughter Jasmine, but she loves this book too much to put it down! We started on Monday and have already finished 2 chapters. I'm really looking forward to the number exercises. I love math, and can see that all three of my kids will do really well if we continue using the same type of challenging exercises together in school.

~kira
homeschooler & mother of 3