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I am fascinated by all that we can learn about brain science from people whose brains work a little bit differently from the masses. I've read a number of books by people with autism or Asperger's syndrome, and through them have gained a huge array of insights as to how to structure my own life better as a "neurotypical". I've also read a number of books about how our brains work and how we learn, such as The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge.
So I came to this book with a great deal of enthusiasm, hoping for the type of insights I get from reading authors like Temple Grandin. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. The book felt like it was selfishly written, as though the author had something to say and wanted to say it in his own raw, unedited fashion. I couldn't connect with the author's voice at all, and it felt like he chose the topics and the order of discussion seemingly at random, then just sat down and rambled about each subject until he'd run out of things to say.
Usually, when I read nonfiction, the work is structured with an eye towards how the reader will feel. The authors try to emphasize the takeaways and how the reader will benefit from the information being presented. This book had none of that, and I felt more and more disengaged the longer I read.
In addition, the text was unreasonably small and every time I sat down to read I got eyestrain. I'm 34, don't use reading glasses, and many people comment on the small text that I can read when we are looking at architectural drawings together, so it's not that my eyesight is poor. The publisher did the author a disservice by pairing his text with such a small font.
Overall, if you're interested in either brain science or autism, there are much better reads out there. If you've read this author's work before, and really enjoyed the style, you may find that you connect better to this book than I did. But for me, this book was a struggle to get through.
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When Dan Tammet wrote EMBRACING THE WIDE SKY, he attempted to embrace so many disciplines, so many philosophies, arts and sciences, with an overarching viewpoint of his own mental abilities, that it makes the head spin. Right away the PURPOSE of the book becomes apparent: How do you hold a mirror to the workings of the savant mind, or HUMAN MEMORY, without the obvious problems of subjective opinions clouding the result? Tammet is a Savant, and a very high functioning one at that. Each way the mind is normally assessed, is touched upon. For instance, we glimpse at the IQ debate question, is genius nurture or nature? Are the IQ tests too culturally biased for any real insight to intelligence? What is the savant syndrom, and how often are savants "faking" their gifts? After all, if anyone knows the limits of a savants mind, it would be a savant. The author tries to explain WHAT is going on in his head, when he "dances with" numbers. How can Tammet rattle off PI 22,500+ numerals past the decimal, or how can he see the number "111" as filled with bright, white light? There's a chapter on how Tammet learned conversational Icelandic in ONE WEEK, and went on a talk show to prove this feat. But, when he tries to explain HOW he does this, he only comes up with the same linguistic mnemonic devices, all students of language use. (simularity to english cognates, etc.) In the linquistics chapter, he devotes a paragraph to Chomsky's theory of humanity's prewired ability to aquire grammer. He shows how indo-European languages interrelate, to explain his linguistic abilities. After that, he jumps into number theory, and the concepts behind modern mathematical theories. (Again, trying to explain what MAY lie behind his savant abilities in math.Read more ›
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28 of 28 people found the following review helpful
I didn't read Daniel Tammet's first book, Born on a Blue Day (yet) but this book was one of the most fascinating and informative books about the way the human mind works that I've ever read. Daniel Temmet is an autistic savant and talks in this book about how similar autistic and non-autistic minds function. It gave me a whole new perspective on how we learn, remember and process thoughts.
It was particularly helpful to me in understanding how we learn language since I've been learning French for the past 10 years and more recently Italian. It's much more involved than I previously thought but I also came away with the idea that it's possible to learn several languages and be able to function in each of them. According to research it's believed that when a person learns more than one language as a baby and small child, both languages occupy the same small section of the brain, but when learning a second or third language, they are kept in a separate section of the brain. This makes sense since little kids can often go back and forth between languages whereas when I try to switch I can almost feel my brain opening another "compartment".
He discusses IQ tests and IQ and disputes where they can actually measure intelligence. There is a whole section on how the human brain processes information and how we remember things. We often hear that our brains are like computers, just processing information but he shows how they are so much more intricate than even the most advanced computers. There are studies showing that babies can count and he discusses arguments that a "number module" exists within the human brain.
There is so much fascinating information packed into this book and Tammet's writing style makes it all so interesting and not at all a dry subject.Read more ›
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This item: Embracing the Wide Sky: A Tour Across the Horizons of the Mind
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