Mind Wide Open by Steven Johnson

Neuroscientists are a heady lot (no pun intended). They tend to write in dense, uninteresting ways. Luckily for us all, Steven Johnson is not a neuroscientist. He is a writer, one who has made a very successful career out of taking dense scientific knowledge and transforming it into something dramatic, emotional, and important. In Mind Wide Open, Johnson goes through brain scans to try to make himself more creative, plays video games with the goal of improving his attention span, and walks us through the biology of emotions by connecting it all to a window crashing in on his home. If you want to know how the mind works on a neurological level without having to trudge through a textbook, this paperback will remind you what it is like to enjoy learning.