'Strokes, seizures, accidents: if they don't kill, they can traumatize the brain so badly that an individual's personality can be significantly changed. 'The author's skill in illuminating how the brain functions and malfunctions manifest themselves in people's lives makes for absorbing reading.These avowals ultimately raise weighty, compelling questions about the nature of identity and what it means to be human.'- The Wall Street Journal Where does the brain end and the mind begin? Curious readers will find both brain and mind fully revved up while engaging with this powerfully appealing and thought-provoking work of neuroscience history.'- Donna Chavez, Booklist 'To pick up one of these stories is to lose oneself in them. Kean has a penchant for the kind of vivid description that makes one want to clutch one's head tenderly close.'- Margaret Quamme, Columbus Dispatch ' strength lies in his storytelling, and in the humane combination of humor and compassion toward the strange life histories he pieces together. ' proves an able guide, connecting each story with the science behind it, always with an air of enthusiastic curiosity.'- Kate Tuttle, Boston Globe Kean's colloquial language and intimate voice bring all of this series of mini-histories to life - all of which are sure to stimulate a wide range of brains.'- Publishers Weekly 'Reading this collection is like touring a museum of neuroscience's most dramatic anomalies, each chapter taking us to a different place and time. Compulsively readable, wicked scientific fun.'- Kirkus

Entertaining and quotable, Kean's writing is sharp, and each individual story brings the history of neuroscience to life. 'In tale after tale, best-selling author Kean provides a fascinating, and at times gloriously gory, look at how early efforts in neurosurgery were essentially a medical guessing game. It's not just an engaging guide to mysteries of existence it's compelling story-telling for anyone with a taste for the bizarre and metaphysical.'- William Poundstone, author of Rock Breaks Scissors Sam Kean's The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons will command your full attention from the first page. Good luck getting it back.'- Amy Stewart, author of The Drunken Botanist The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons is one of those books that will have you following your friends around, reading passages out loud, until they snatch the book away from you and read it for themselves. 'This is Sam Kean's finest work yet, an entertaining and offbeat history of the brain populated with mad scientists, deranged criminals, geniuses, and wretched souls.

Club's Best Books of 2014Ī Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist: Nonfiction One of Amazon's Best Books of the Year: Science

Tales of the dueling neurosurgeons