Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more


or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
or
Amazon Prime Free Trial required. Sign up when you check out. Learn More
Kindle Edition
 
   
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot: Unleashing Your Brain's Potential
 
 
Start reading Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot: Unleashing Your Brain's Potential [Paperback]

Richard Restak (Author)
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)

List Price: $13.95
Price: $11.16 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $2.79 (20%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Want it delivered Monday, January 30? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition --  
Hardcover --  
Paperback $11.16  
Audio, CD, Audiobook, Unabridged --  
Audible Audio Edition, Unabridged $15.95 or Free with Audible 30-day free trial

Book Description

October 22, 2002
In Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot, eminent neuropsychiatrist and bestselling author Richard Restak, M.D., combines the latest research in neurology and psychology to show us how to get our brain up to speed for managing every aspect of our busy lives.

Everything we think and everything we choose to do alters our brain and fundamentally changes who we are, a process that continues until the end of our lives. Few people think of the brain as being susceptible to change in its actual structure, but in fact we can preselect the kind of brain we will have by continually exposing ourselves to rich and varied life experiences. Unlike other organs that eventually wear out with repeated and sustained use, the brain actually improves the more we challenge it.

Most of us incorporate some kind of physical exercise into our daily lives. We do this to improve our bodies and health and generally make us feel better. Why not do the same for the brain? The more we exercise it, the better it performs and the better we feel. Think of Restak as a personal trainer for your brain—he will help you assess your mental strengths and weaknesses, and his entertaining book will set you to thinking about the world and the people around you in a new light, providing you with improved and varied skills and capabilities. From interacting with colleagues to recognizing your own psychological makeup, from understanding the way you see something to why you’re looking at it in the first place, from explaining the cause of panic attacks to warding off performance anxiety, this book will tell you the whys and hows of the brain’s workings.

Packed with practical advice and fascinating examples drawn from history, literature, and science, Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot provides twenty-eight informative and realistic steps that we can all take to improve our brainpower.

Frequently Bought Together

Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot: Unleashing Your Brain's Potential + Think Smart: A Neuroscientist's Prescription for Improving Your Brain's Performance + The Playful Brain: The Surprising Science of How Puzzles Improve Your Mind
Price For All Three: $32.54

Show availability and shipping details

Buy the selected items together
  • In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • Think Smart: A Neuroscientist's Prescription for Improving Your Brain's Performance $10.88

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • The Playful Brain: The Surprising Science of How Puzzles Improve Your Mind $10.50

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details



Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Most of us would like to be smarter," asserts Restak (The Brain, companion to PBS's series by the same name), neuropsychiatrist and clinical professor of neurology at George Washington University Medical Center. Restak claims that improving cognition is the answer. In accessible science-teacher style, Restak delineates the brain's attributes, from its weight (three pounds) to the number of nerve cells (100 billion) and its infinity of synapses, explaining what aids communication, informs memory and so forth. Knowing how the brain works is important to building its power, says Restak, and in this high-tech age, we need as much cognition as we can get. He proposes a comprehensive and handy plan to improve one's mind, literally as well as literarily. If one stops learning, one's overall mental capacity diminishes because the synaptic links shrink. Brain stimulation has been declared protection against Alzheimer's. The brain does not age; keeping it "fit" is no more difficult than keeping one's cholesterol under control. In outlining a plan including everything from exercise to learning to play a musical instrument, Restak explains how interconnections between the brain's functions keep it growing. Train your brain through logic problems, complicated games like chess, difficult jigsaw puzzles and widely varied reading. Not surprisingly, watching TV, a passive act, does exactly what your mother always said it did makes you stupid. The extraordinary range of references to literature, science, gamesmanship and even cryptograms makes it apparent that Restak practices what he preaches. This unusual, intriguing book will appeal to the health diligent and the senior contingent.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Neuropsychiatrist Restak (neurology, George Washington Univ. Medical Ctr.) has written numerous books on the human brain, including the very engaging The Brain Has a Mind of Its Own. In his latest work, he offers 28 ways to improve mental fitness, including exercises to enhance memory, concentration, creativity, and analytical ability. The proposed exercises are designed to increase neuronal linkages that will, in turn, improve overall mental functioning. Some of Restak's suggestions require a hefty time expenditure, adequate financial resources (a laptop computer), strong joints and flexibility (tai chi exercises), and a private office equipped with a couch (napping during the work day!). But his point is well taken: practicing simple mind games, listening to music, reading widely, keeping a journal, etc., can greatly enhance the brain's performance. Restak's upbeat and enlightening guide will certainly be a popular addition to public libraries. Laurie Bartolini, Illinois State Lib., Springfield
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 220 pages
  • Publisher: Three Rivers Press (October 22, 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0609810057
  • ISBN-13: 978-0609810057
  • Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #96,184 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

 

Customer Reviews

32 Reviews
5 star:
 (10)
4 star:
 (6)
3 star:
 (13)
2 star:
 (3)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.7 out of 5 stars (32 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

101 of 111 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting concepts, tedious delivery, December 28, 2001
By A Customer
Mozart's Brain and The Fighter Pilot is an interesting book about how the brain works, which parts of the brain control different activities, and what exercises you might conduct to exercise your brain. Unfortunately, the writing straddles between the author's academic background and what might be interesting to the average reader. The end result is a book that seems like random, rambling recollections and anecdoates of a smart man, but lazily written. I was never sure if his assertions were backed by facts or if they were just speculation on his part.

Examples of this mixed style:
- Very prescriptive statements: "you should play chess if you want to keep a sharp mind"; "the only way to..."; and a proclivity for great books as being the only books worth reading
- The exercises he suggested are rarely validated by experimental proof.
- Offers specifics where none are needed - "If you are over 35 and you pull your skin back towards your face you will look 10 years younger."

As a last note, I felt the title was misleading. I was looking for more detailed anecdotes about how various types of people's brains worked. The example of Mozart, however, barely covered two pages.

Enjoyable, entertaining, but also frustrating.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


62 of 68 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Use it or lose it., January 5, 2002
By A Customer
Dr. Restak provides 28 ideas in 28 chapters for maintaining an alert mind. Many of the ideas are simply motherhood and apple pie recommendations - reduce stress, concentrate, exercise, etc. And while there are some interesting insights on how the brain works, based on PET scans and recent research, Dr. Restak's recommendations are anecdotal and based on personal experience.

Dr. Restak combines brain facts with his own musings to give the illusion of a scientific basis for his recommendations. However, there are no references to studies that confirm any of Dr. Restak's mind enhancing techniques. On the other hand, playing chess, listening to Mozart and reading more books isn't going to hurt anyone either. A better title might be "Use It or Lose It."

While you won't use this book for reference, it still rates three stars for entertainment.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars I'm Already Smarter!, July 28, 2004
By 
Joshua Allen (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot: Unleashing Your Brain's Potential (Paperback)
If I had read the reviews here, I never would have bought this book. Boy am I glad I bought this book first!

I won't deny that the writing style is a bit inconsistent (but the author does, after all, admit in the pages of this very book that he sometimes forces himself to write a certain number of pages per hour, which presumably takes precedence over consistency). I also would not deny that some of the chapters are more useful than others. For example, I found the space devoted to a literary description of how to do Tai Chi rather puzzling (if you want to learn Tai Chi, take physical lessons from someone who knows).

However, the fundamental high-level lessons of this book are backed up by research and are worth the price of the book alone. The basic lessons are things like: a) strengthening one part of your brain can strengthen others b) exercising the brain can help it work better c) there are many different types of cognition (cognition is not IQ), and all of these areas can be trained d) you can grow new neurons, the brain is more plastic than we originally believed, and your brain can actually get better with age.

These lessons are invaluable, and anyone who takes these lessons to heart should be actively seeking out new and creative ways to give his or her brain a continual full-brain workout. Much of the book is devoted to ideas about how to do just this; how to exercise the brain. But rather than pick apart each individual idea, you should view this as just a tiny sample of the sorts of things you can do to condition the brain, and an affirmation that creatively generating such brain-conditioning exercises is a useful lifelong goal.

Does it work? Since beginning my full-brain workout program, my scores on ThinkFast have gone up a number of levels and I sure *feel* smarter. You'll have to judge your own results for yourself.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews











Only search this product's reviews



Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
This is the most important factor in getting smart and staying smart. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Stroop Test, David Book, William James, James Burke, Nobel Prize-winning
New!
Concordance | Text Stats
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:



Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(10)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums





Look for Similar Items by Category


Look for Similar Items by Subject