What do you think?
Rate this book
The Brain: A User's Guide
Listening Length: 11 hours and 31 minutes
Congratulations! You're the proud owner of the most complex information processing device in the known universe. The human brain comes equipped with all sorts of useful design features, but also many bugs and weaknesses. Problem is you don't get an owner's manual. You have to just plug and play.
As a result, most of us never properly understand how our brains work and what they're truly capable of. We fail get the best out of them, ignore some of their most useful features and struggle to overcome their design faults.
Featuring witty essays,enlightening infographics and fascinating 'try this at home' experiments,New Scientist take you on a journey through intelligence, memory, creativity, the unconscious and beyond. From the strange ways to distort what we think of as 'reality' to the brain hacks that can improve memory,The Brain: A User's Guide will help you understand your brain and show you how to use it to its full potential.
Congratulations! You're the proud owner of the most complex information processing device in the known universe. The human brain comes equipped with all sorts of useful design features, but also many bugs and weaknesses. Problem is you don't get an owner's manual. You have to just plug and play.
As a result, most of us never properly understand how our brains work and what they're truly capable of. We fail get the best out of them, ignore some of their most useful features and struggle to overcome their design faults.
Featuring witty essays,enlightening infographics and fascinating 'try this at home' experiments,New Scientist take you on a journey through intelligence, memory, creativity, the unconscious and beyond. From the strange ways to distort what we think of as 'reality' to the brain hacks that can improve memory,The Brain: A User's Guide will help you understand your brain and show you how to use it to its full potential.
Audible Audio
Published September 20, 2018
82 people are currently reading
328 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
February 4, 2021
Absolutely fascinating. Now a days there are way too many books pretending to pose as a credible source on neurobiology and psychology. This is obviously not that. It's obstinate obsession with factual evidence and articulation of different viewpoint appeals the analytic and scientific side of me very much. Later I tried to explore many concepts described in this book on the google scholar and I was amazed by the fact how updated this book was. The topics discussed in this book are indeed intricate but if you pay attention, it will amaze you.
October 22, 2018
Lazy compilation of what I imagine must've been a weekly column. Nothing else explains the endless repetitions and the general depth lacking pop science trivia.
April 24, 2024
This book has the same content as this one The Brain: Everything You Need To Know but it has several more graphics.
This is a good book for readers who read little about the nature and mechanisms of our brain and its effect on our behaviors but want to obtain a bird's eye view of this subject matter in a comprehensive way. The last few sections of this book also contain tidbits about practical ways of maximizing our knowledge of brain functions for improvements and more efficient way of life.
What I see as a deficit in this book is its references to old researches of such past luminaries in behavioral science as Zimbrado, Ash, Milgram. This is because I read a few other books that downgrade the merit of these researches as hard to replicate or out of its useful date because of new social developments or because these original experiments were actually intervened in suspicious ways. If these researchers conducted their experiments again now, the results would very much dramatically differ and new lessons would be reached.
Some tests available in this book put some charms into my reading experience.
At the end of the book is a list of more books used by the authors that readers can reach out for in case this book ignites an appetite for more.
The ultimate lesson from this book is that if we think we "own" our brains and possess our own free will and selfhood, findings from all branches of behavioral science tell us we have serious misunderstanding. But this also does not mean we are at the mercy of some dark forces we are not aware of. Our knowledge of brain science and its sensible application is the key to our more realistic understanding and utilization of this greatest natural evolutionary invention in the universe called brain.
This is a good book for readers who read little about the nature and mechanisms of our brain and its effect on our behaviors but want to obtain a bird's eye view of this subject matter in a comprehensive way. The last few sections of this book also contain tidbits about practical ways of maximizing our knowledge of brain functions for improvements and more efficient way of life.
What I see as a deficit in this book is its references to old researches of such past luminaries in behavioral science as Zimbrado, Ash, Milgram. This is because I read a few other books that downgrade the merit of these researches as hard to replicate or out of its useful date because of new social developments or because these original experiments were actually intervened in suspicious ways. If these researchers conducted their experiments again now, the results would very much dramatically differ and new lessons would be reached.
Some tests available in this book put some charms into my reading experience.
At the end of the book is a list of more books used by the authors that readers can reach out for in case this book ignites an appetite for more.
The ultimate lesson from this book is that if we think we "own" our brains and possess our own free will and selfhood, findings from all branches of behavioral science tell us we have serious misunderstanding. But this also does not mean we are at the mercy of some dark forces we are not aware of. Our knowledge of brain science and its sensible application is the key to our more realistic understanding and utilization of this greatest natural evolutionary invention in the universe called brain.
January 28, 2023
really interesting and a good, super curricular, one-sitting read. would recommend this because I feel like I have great foundations regarding neuroscience, psychological concepts, and the brain; whereas before it felt like i was blurting out buzzwords. personal highlights were: the mentions of Freud because (I think he was insane and I love it); the fixation bias in the Bromiley case; and the explorations of different biases like the self-enhancement bias.
August 18, 2025
Extremely informative!
It’s no exaggeration to say everyone that values their health to any degree whatsoever should give this a read. Numerous facts and even tricks about our internal machine - the brain - and ways in which we can utilise its full potential.
It’s an easy read but it’s also a scientific article with a bunch of extremely technical terms that can often leave you confused and even overwhelmed.
The things you’ll learn from it make it definitely worth it though.
It’s no exaggeration to say everyone that values their health to any degree whatsoever should give this a read. Numerous facts and even tricks about our internal machine - the brain - and ways in which we can utilise its full potential.
It’s an easy read but it’s also a scientific article with a bunch of extremely technical terms that can often leave you confused and even overwhelmed.
The things you’ll learn from it make it definitely worth it though.
March 16, 2021
This book is a bunch of small articles that describes several aspects of our Brain - from structure to diseases to how to take care of it. Some articles are about right on size, some will trigger your curiosity to learn more on that specific point. I'm suspect as I like this kind of summary, but this is not a through dissection of our Brain - it's a quick user's guide.
July 13, 2022
Un libro de tono más divulgativo que didáctico con una estructura de capítulos monográficos compuestos por artículos de aspecto periodístico. Eso hace que unos tengan más seriedad que otros, que en algunos casos se hable con más fundamento que otros. En definitiva, un libro que divulga sobre el cerebro con datos curiosos, divertidos juegos y alguna reflexión sumamente interesante.
November 15, 2022
Pleasant to read for the wide audience who is not expert in neuroscience and psychology but is interested to learn more. It is purely scientific, so don't expect abstractness but it's an easy read. Its small independent chapters each reveal a different side of our brain function, from decision making, dreams and memory to the unconscious and the concept of self.
March 27, 2019
Great compilation of all the odd ways in which our brain works. Is there free will? How do we record memories? What do those with strange brain anomalies tell us about how our brain works?
Yes it is a compliation, but I certainly enjoyed it.
Yes it is a compliation, but I certainly enjoyed it.
April 26, 2020
A good superficial overview for the layperson about some of the aspects of the brain. Does not dive deep enough for a proper understanding, but presents the reader with a good foundation from which to understand deeper research of various research fields related to the brain.
February 14, 2019
Lots of detail, lots of images. Lacks the references to New Scientist articles I had expected.
May 6, 2019
- available in SG NLB 612.82 (Sengkang
July 11, 2019
Typical New Scientists
Got more from the read than expected. Typical New Scientist, much content yet somehow style over substance. Thought provoking illustrations.
Got more from the read than expected. Typical New Scientist, much content yet somehow style over substance. Thought provoking illustrations.
October 10, 2020
The book is organized into different chapters making it easy to follow.
April 2, 2021
the first audio book I read(?) definitely reading it again.
August 5, 2021
Very accessible overview of a good selection of neural topics.
August 15, 2021
An at times engaging collection of writings from a mix of authors that ultimately falls somewhat short of the mark.
Read
August 7, 2022one in a kind
May 21, 2023
Very informative overview of the brain and a pretty high level explanation of how it functions. Use of real-world studies / cases was nice
April 4, 2025
I didn’t like the way it was written
October 3, 2022
Not the richest content on the topic.
I recommend a more sophisticated book with more science-backed analysis.
Try to avoid
I recommend a more sophisticated book with more science-backed analysis.
Try to avoid
March 25, 2020
Enjoyed is, but as my brain is not strong enough to store all the information provided in the book I might start considering nicotine and rapid left to right eye movement to boost my mental capabilities 🤭
Jokes aside, it was very interesting read and definitely learned thing or two about our brain which is merely 2% our bodyweight, gobbles up ~20% of energy to make us what we are.
Jokes aside, it was very interesting read and definitely learned thing or two about our brain which is merely 2% our bodyweight, gobbles up ~20% of energy to make us what we are.
November 9, 2018
Pop science at it's finest.... If you have a brain, you don't need to waste time reading this book.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews