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Dark and Magical Places: The Neuroscience of Navigation
How the brain helps us to understand and navigate space—and why, sometimes, it doesn’t work the way it should.
Inside our heads we carry around an infinite and endlessly unfolding map of the world. Navigation is one of the most ancient neural abilities we have—older than language. In Dark and Magical Places, Christopher Kemp embarks on a journey to discover the remarkable extent of what our minds can do.
Fueled by his own spatial shortcomings, Kemp describes the brain regions that orient us in space and the specialized neurons that do it. Place cells. Grid cells. He examines how the brain plans routes, recognizes landmarks, and makes sure we leave a room through a door instead of trying to leave through a painting. From the secrets of supernavigators like the indigenous hunters of the Bolivian rainforest to the confusing environments inhabited by people with place blindness, Kemp charts the myriad ways in which we find our way and explains the cutting-edge neuroscience behind them.
How did Neanderthals navigate? Why do even seasoned hikers stray from the trail? What spatial skills do we inherit from our parents? How can smartphones and our reliance on GPS devices impact our brains? In engaging, engrossing language, Kemp unravels the mysteries of navigating and links the brain’s complex functions to the effects that diseases like Alzheimer’s, types of amnesia, and traumatic brain injuries have on our perception of the world around us.
A book for anyone who has ever felt compelled to venture off the beaten path, Dark and Magical Places is a stirring reminder of the beauty in losing yourself to your surroundings. And the beauty in understanding how our brains can guide us home.
Inside our heads we carry around an infinite and endlessly unfolding map of the world. Navigation is one of the most ancient neural abilities we have—older than language. In Dark and Magical Places, Christopher Kemp embarks on a journey to discover the remarkable extent of what our minds can do.
Fueled by his own spatial shortcomings, Kemp describes the brain regions that orient us in space and the specialized neurons that do it. Place cells. Grid cells. He examines how the brain plans routes, recognizes landmarks, and makes sure we leave a room through a door instead of trying to leave through a painting. From the secrets of supernavigators like the indigenous hunters of the Bolivian rainforest to the confusing environments inhabited by people with place blindness, Kemp charts the myriad ways in which we find our way and explains the cutting-edge neuroscience behind them.
How did Neanderthals navigate? Why do even seasoned hikers stray from the trail? What spatial skills do we inherit from our parents? How can smartphones and our reliance on GPS devices impact our brains? In engaging, engrossing language, Kemp unravels the mysteries of navigating and links the brain’s complex functions to the effects that diseases like Alzheimer’s, types of amnesia, and traumatic brain injuries have on our perception of the world around us.
A book for anyone who has ever felt compelled to venture off the beaten path, Dark and Magical Places is a stirring reminder of the beauty in losing yourself to your surroundings. And the beauty in understanding how our brains can guide us home.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published January 25, 2022
129 people are currently reading
3655 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Kemp
4 books29 followersChristopher Kemp is a molecular biologist specializing in neurodegenerative diseases at Michigan State University. He lives with his family in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 86 reviews
November 18, 2021
I wrote it.
May 20, 2022
Ein Buch über die Neurobiologie von Navigieren und Verirren, geschrieben von jemandem ohne jeden Orientierungssinn. Das hat mir schon gereicht, um es noch vor dem Ende der Leseprobe zu kaufen. Es ist auch wirklich voll mit interessanten Details, und obwohl ich selbst ein Buch übers Verirren geschrieben habe, war mir viel davon neu. Ein bisschen gestört hat mich sein "SCHAUT HER, ICH WAR WIRKLICH PERSÖNLICH IM BÜRO DIESER PERSON, WIR HABEN NICHT NUR GEMAILT!"-Sachbuchstil, bei dem jede Barttracht und Topfpflanze erwähnt werden muss. Und ich fange an, Seiten zu überblättern, sobald es zu viel um Gehirnregionen geht, weil ich auch nach dem Lesen von vielen Büchern, in denen Gehirnregionen erwähnt wurden, immer noch nur "irgendwo im Kopf halt" lese, wenn da "im suprafrontalen Nystagmus" oder so was steht. Am Ende geht es dann leider wieder darum, wie schädlich GPS für unseren Orientierungssinn ist, da würde ich mir auch endlich mal eine differenziertere Betrachtung wünschen. Aber alles andere war ganz gut!
July 8, 2023
What a circuitous journey this booked turned out to be. “Dark and Magical Places: The Neuroscience of Navigation" by Christopher Kemp was a cocktail of brilliant sparks, interspersed with confusing, less engaging moments that made it sag.
I’ll give him credit, despite the fact that he’s a big-brained, science-type guy, Kemp has real writing ability. The man can craft an entertaining sentence, for sure. But his work has this peculiar style of swerving between being the approachable lecturer, perfect for the casual reader, then donning the cap of an academician with a gusto that left me often questioning what I was reading. This discord made my journey through the book feel like a rocky boat ride on stormy seas.
There are some fairly compelling parts to the book. The sections that delve into the intricacies of how our brains navigate through the world are fascinating. We're not talking about a basic GPS system here - it's the marvel of the human brain we're discussing. Reading about the sheer complexity and individual variations in our navigation abilities was illuminating. This book taught me that while some of us might have an uncanny knack for directions, others could get lost in their own backyards - and there's a whole neuroscience world to back this up.
However, Kemp’s enthusiasm for the physiological aspects tends to get the better of him. There are extensive stretches where he gets too engrossed in the nitty-gritty of brain processes. It almost felt like I was trapped in a never-ending neurobiology lecture, and that's not what I signed up for when I picked up this book. In these parts, the language becomes too academic, making it a challenging read for those who aren't well-versed in the field. I just wanted him to pick a lane. Make it a fun light read, or make it a deep dive, but stop switching back and forth.
The book's hybrid nature, straddling the line between popular science and an academic paper, creates a palpable tension that it never quite resolves. Although the topics are compelling, and there are moments of clarity where the content shines, the hodgepodge presentation and narrative wanderings mar the overall experience.
In conclusion, this is a book of real promise that only partially delivers. Its unique insights are obscured by overly technical sections and a lack of a guiding narrative. Yet, in its better moments, the book offers a fascinating glimpse into the complexities of our brain's navigation skills. It's a mixed bag of sorts, and I suggest you pick it up only if you're prepared for some intellectual heavy lifting amidst captivating science.
I’ll give him credit, despite the fact that he’s a big-brained, science-type guy, Kemp has real writing ability. The man can craft an entertaining sentence, for sure. But his work has this peculiar style of swerving between being the approachable lecturer, perfect for the casual reader, then donning the cap of an academician with a gusto that left me often questioning what I was reading. This discord made my journey through the book feel like a rocky boat ride on stormy seas.
There are some fairly compelling parts to the book. The sections that delve into the intricacies of how our brains navigate through the world are fascinating. We're not talking about a basic GPS system here - it's the marvel of the human brain we're discussing. Reading about the sheer complexity and individual variations in our navigation abilities was illuminating. This book taught me that while some of us might have an uncanny knack for directions, others could get lost in their own backyards - and there's a whole neuroscience world to back this up.
However, Kemp’s enthusiasm for the physiological aspects tends to get the better of him. There are extensive stretches where he gets too engrossed in the nitty-gritty of brain processes. It almost felt like I was trapped in a never-ending neurobiology lecture, and that's not what I signed up for when I picked up this book. In these parts, the language becomes too academic, making it a challenging read for those who aren't well-versed in the field. I just wanted him to pick a lane. Make it a fun light read, or make it a deep dive, but stop switching back and forth.
The book's hybrid nature, straddling the line between popular science and an academic paper, creates a palpable tension that it never quite resolves. Although the topics are compelling, and there are moments of clarity where the content shines, the hodgepodge presentation and narrative wanderings mar the overall experience.
In conclusion, this is a book of real promise that only partially delivers. Its unique insights are obscured by overly technical sections and a lack of a guiding narrative. Yet, in its better moments, the book offers a fascinating glimpse into the complexities of our brain's navigation skills. It's a mixed bag of sorts, and I suggest you pick it up only if you're prepared for some intellectual heavy lifting amidst captivating science.
September 12, 2022
I accidentally put a very wrong address in my GPS and drove there while listening to the Death By GPS chapter, and I will tell that story for the next 5 years.
September 23, 2022
This book would have done better with some better explanation of experimental limitation and waaay less sexism. Throughout the entire book, I got dizzy listening to the author stating how much more superior his wife's navigational skills are to his, only for him to quickly insert "but actually, men outperform women on average, it's science".
Was the book interesting? Yes in the first half, especially when laying down the foundations of navigational tasks in the brain. And the way the book started I thought the author will dare to offer some potential scientific explanations for why some people got spectacularly lost (and some got to tell the tale).
However, what followed in the second half was a thick soup of research presented as fact, with insufficient discussions about controls and experimental design. The author tells us about how men's superior navigational skills are due to the hunter gatherer evolution of our species. A paragraph later he gives voice to a researcher who disproves it. He later talks about the Mozart effect, presenting it as fact. He then says later that the effect is unreproducible. He's organized parts of this book the same way his brain takes him down a path: he's convinced this is the right path, and then just turns on a different path equally convinced that is the correct one. There is no discussion on limitations for these theories. There is no critical thinking. And that's the biggest problem with this book. Here's an example: We are presented a theory on why Homo sapiens overtook the Neanderthal species, because a scientist experimented with brain organoids in a dish and saw that when he mutates a gene the organoids look different. So, did you repeat the experiment in a mouse? Try to do a proteomics or genomics experiment to see how it knocking the gene in and out affects the protein interactome, or transcriptome? Did they try to put it in a mouse, or a different animal? Just this week I read another article about a critical gene that explains our ability to outlive the Neanderthals, so which one was the real CRITICAL gene? (the latter article at least included experiments in mice). The author just regurgitates information, makes no attempt to critically analyze it, but does summarize it.
I mentioned the sexism: I really want to see what these experiments will show in a few decades. It's like we never learn how our implicit sexism impacts not only abilities in the two sexes (no mention of the spectrum in the book), but also our ability to interpret those results. You may remember an experiment in the 90s where young boys and girls were put in an fMRI while reading and it was observed that girls activate more regions in the brain while reading. Conclusion: girls' brain are having more difficulty reading and that's why they require that more regions to be active while reading. Reality, when more research was done: , those extra regions were likely responsible for decoding metaphors and symbolic meanings in the text and boys activated the same regions a bit later in their development. Girls weren't dumber, they were actually developing superior reading skills faster than boys.
This book is rife with examples of implicit bias being either left unaddressed, or not properly controlled. Did you know than only ~2% of London cabbies are women? (The author just drops that in there, no explanation). Did you also know that most western societies are more likely to encourage men to become drivers and women to become nurses? Well that's not even hinted at in the book. What about controlled experiments? Research suggests that in countries where societal norms encourage equality between the sexes navigational skills are almost identical between men and women. The author declares however some countries as completely egalitarian, no traces of implicit bias left over. His reasoning? Not explained. A bit later we discuss about another test where women are outperformed by men even in these egalitarian countries. The gap is largest the author says in egalitarian societies. Larger than between women in egalitarian societies and women in societies that keep them locked in the home. How is that possible? What does large mean? What's the percentage? What's the average/median/mode of distribution? What's the sample size in different countries? Are we talking a difference between 2% and 4%? No clue! And I got really angry reading about the author's inability to understand that even egalitarian societies are still shedding implicit bias; hell, I grew up in countries where women were heralded as equal and encouraged to enter STEM fields, and were the majority of professors in the university...and I still heard our 2 male profs telling us that actually men are better, but women work harder. What?!?!?!? Over and over again I heard this, as well as comments about manliness being impaired for those entering nursing, and professional driving being a manly job. It's absurd, I could write an entire thesis on how many gaps the author allowed in his logic, but I don't have the time or energy. Here we are again, with another poorly written science book heralding the inferiority of women. Let's see how we'll look at this in a few decades, when more research has come in.
And let me end by why I doubt women can be genetically selected to be inferior 3D rotaters--the same genes that allow men to be good at 3D rotating and navigation ARE FOUND IN WOMEN TOO (and women have more genes than men on average--again, there is a discussion to be had about intersex, but it's already a long review). Some people will jump to the conclusion that perhaps its epigenetics that's to blame, perhaps maternal/paternal methylation impacts how we activate those genes: that can't be it, since it's clear that mothers with superior/inferior navigational skills pass their genes to sons who end up being just like them and vice-versa (fathers to daughters). Perhaps estrogen/testosterone levels have something to do with it? Why would it? Estrogen and testosterone influence behavior, specifically mating, but then it would mean that pre-puberty experiments can be run to see if there is a difference between the genders before hormones kick in; or if there is an inversion of skills in trans people. Until reliable experiments are performed with these controls, I remain unconvinced that testosterone and estrogen explain everything from favorite foods to choice of mate, to ability to do math. It just doesn't make sense, in a species where brain plasticity has enabled us to evolve into the top predator and manipulator of our ecosystem, to have so much depend on gender and gonads. But again, experiments can be performed and maybe they'll show indeed that there is epigenetic regulation that impacts navigation in genders. Until then, could we stop acting like erudite sexists when writing books addressed to the general public? As a woman in STEM with a mother in STEM (and said mother has far superior math and navigational abilities compared to my father), I'm getting very tired of this.
Was the book interesting? Yes in the first half, especially when laying down the foundations of navigational tasks in the brain. And the way the book started I thought the author will dare to offer some potential scientific explanations for why some people got spectacularly lost (and some got to tell the tale).
However, what followed in the second half was a thick soup of research presented as fact, with insufficient discussions about controls and experimental design. The author tells us about how men's superior navigational skills are due to the hunter gatherer evolution of our species. A paragraph later he gives voice to a researcher who disproves it. He later talks about the Mozart effect, presenting it as fact. He then says later that the effect is unreproducible. He's organized parts of this book the same way his brain takes him down a path: he's convinced this is the right path, and then just turns on a different path equally convinced that is the correct one. There is no discussion on limitations for these theories. There is no critical thinking. And that's the biggest problem with this book. Here's an example: We are presented a theory on why Homo sapiens overtook the Neanderthal species, because a scientist experimented with brain organoids in a dish and saw that when he mutates a gene the organoids look different. So, did you repeat the experiment in a mouse? Try to do a proteomics or genomics experiment to see how it knocking the gene in and out affects the protein interactome, or transcriptome? Did they try to put it in a mouse, or a different animal? Just this week I read another article about a critical gene that explains our ability to outlive the Neanderthals, so which one was the real CRITICAL gene? (the latter article at least included experiments in mice). The author just regurgitates information, makes no attempt to critically analyze it, but does summarize it.
I mentioned the sexism: I really want to see what these experiments will show in a few decades. It's like we never learn how our implicit sexism impacts not only abilities in the two sexes (no mention of the spectrum in the book), but also our ability to interpret those results. You may remember an experiment in the 90s where young boys and girls were put in an fMRI while reading and it was observed that girls activate more regions in the brain while reading. Conclusion: girls' brain are having more difficulty reading and that's why they require that more regions to be active while reading. Reality, when more research was done: , those extra regions were likely responsible for decoding metaphors and symbolic meanings in the text and boys activated the same regions a bit later in their development. Girls weren't dumber, they were actually developing superior reading skills faster than boys.
This book is rife with examples of implicit bias being either left unaddressed, or not properly controlled. Did you know than only ~2% of London cabbies are women? (The author just drops that in there, no explanation). Did you also know that most western societies are more likely to encourage men to become drivers and women to become nurses? Well that's not even hinted at in the book. What about controlled experiments? Research suggests that in countries where societal norms encourage equality between the sexes navigational skills are almost identical between men and women. The author declares however some countries as completely egalitarian, no traces of implicit bias left over. His reasoning? Not explained. A bit later we discuss about another test where women are outperformed by men even in these egalitarian countries. The gap is largest the author says in egalitarian societies. Larger than between women in egalitarian societies and women in societies that keep them locked in the home. How is that possible? What does large mean? What's the percentage? What's the average/median/mode of distribution? What's the sample size in different countries? Are we talking a difference between 2% and 4%? No clue! And I got really angry reading about the author's inability to understand that even egalitarian societies are still shedding implicit bias; hell, I grew up in countries where women were heralded as equal and encouraged to enter STEM fields, and were the majority of professors in the university...and I still heard our 2 male profs telling us that actually men are better, but women work harder. What?!?!?!? Over and over again I heard this, as well as comments about manliness being impaired for those entering nursing, and professional driving being a manly job. It's absurd, I could write an entire thesis on how many gaps the author allowed in his logic, but I don't have the time or energy. Here we are again, with another poorly written science book heralding the inferiority of women. Let's see how we'll look at this in a few decades, when more research has come in.
And let me end by why I doubt women can be genetically selected to be inferior 3D rotaters--the same genes that allow men to be good at 3D rotating and navigation ARE FOUND IN WOMEN TOO (and women have more genes than men on average--again, there is a discussion to be had about intersex, but it's already a long review). Some people will jump to the conclusion that perhaps its epigenetics that's to blame, perhaps maternal/paternal methylation impacts how we activate those genes: that can't be it, since it's clear that mothers with superior/inferior navigational skills pass their genes to sons who end up being just like them and vice-versa (fathers to daughters). Perhaps estrogen/testosterone levels have something to do with it? Why would it? Estrogen and testosterone influence behavior, specifically mating, but then it would mean that pre-puberty experiments can be run to see if there is a difference between the genders before hormones kick in; or if there is an inversion of skills in trans people. Until reliable experiments are performed with these controls, I remain unconvinced that testosterone and estrogen explain everything from favorite foods to choice of mate, to ability to do math. It just doesn't make sense, in a species where brain plasticity has enabled us to evolve into the top predator and manipulator of our ecosystem, to have so much depend on gender and gonads. But again, experiments can be performed and maybe they'll show indeed that there is epigenetic regulation that impacts navigation in genders. Until then, could we stop acting like erudite sexists when writing books addressed to the general public? As a woman in STEM with a mother in STEM (and said mother has far superior math and navigational abilities compared to my father), I'm getting very tired of this.
August 23, 2025
This was an entertaining book to listen to. I learned so many new and interesting things. I may have to track down a physical/text copy and re-read the more technical bits. The narrative is told in an engaging, straightforward manner. Christopher Kemp examines the neuroscience of navigation: how we find our way around, why we get lost so often, why some people are better navigation than others, and what goes on in our brains while we are navigating (or not). There is even a chapter dedicated to the hazards of depending on GPS devices.
April 6, 2022
I prefer science books that are more a straightforward narrative of the discoveries and the concepts… this is more idiosyncratic. But I delighted in the way the author talks to many different scientists, and provides their self-evaluation (on a scale of one to ten) of their navigation abilities. Most significantly, I have changed my behavior since reading this book: I am trying to put aside Apple Maps and Waze and all that, and at least try to use my brain to get me places. Well done, sir!
did-not-finish
August 27, 2024I found a digital copy of DARK AND MAGICAL PLACES by Christopher Kemp on Libby. Read by Neil Gardner.
I didn't make one note about this book while reading it because it was so far above my head. I think for people with some scientific or medical background, this could be a good read.
DNF 59%
Recommend? Yes, for the right reader
Finished: Sep 27 23
Format: Audiobook, Libby
I didn't make one note about this book while reading it because it was so far above my head. I think for people with some scientific or medical background, this could be a good read.
DNF 59%
Recommend? Yes, for the right reader
Finished: Sep 27 23
Format: Audiobook, Libby
February 24, 2022
Best book I've read all year. This is like David Sedaris writing about neuroscience. It was hilarious and I learned so much!
April 23, 2022
Very informative, interesting personal anecdotes (which usually don't interest me, but Kemp disperses it well and doesn't drag it out too long), and occasionally amusing (the...er-hem...male-parts museum in Iceland of over 200 mammals, which apparently, Google Maps deemed as "family-friendly").
The neuroscience of cognitive maps was interesting, though was quite technical at some parts (which I admittedly skipped through). However, it was mostly "follow-able".
Overall, the book provided multiple interesting insights on human spatial navigation. Recommended!
The neuroscience of cognitive maps was interesting, though was quite technical at some parts (which I admittedly skipped through). However, it was mostly "follow-able".
Overall, the book provided multiple interesting insights on human spatial navigation. Recommended!
July 26, 2022
This is the third pop science book I've read in the last year that anchors it's perspectives on navigation around the distressing stories of Amanda Eller and Geraldine Largay. I must admit, I wish writers would stop. It isn't necessary, and it feels exploitative, especially in the case of Largay, where there is a grieving family.
That aside, this is a well-put-together summary of current research into navigation and the brain. Kemp focuses on the capacity to build mental maps and examines the evidence that some people, possibly including himself, can't, instead relying on memory for landmarks and directions. There's some good coverage of gender issues. It’s readable and current if you can get past the more sensational bits.
That aside, this is a well-put-together summary of current research into navigation and the brain. Kemp focuses on the capacity to build mental maps and examines the evidence that some people, possibly including himself, can't, instead relying on memory for landmarks and directions. There's some good coverage of gender issues. It’s readable and current if you can get past the more sensational bits.
August 2, 2023
I read this book for a neuroscience book club I co-run. Message me if you want our book report :)
I quite liked this book. It's a topic I think most people would find pretty interesting, given how integral it is to our daily lives, but most people, including me, don't know much about it. The author states that this book is an attempt to understand the shortcomings of his own brain. He is a self-professed poor navigator, and is fascinated with those who aren’t. In this book, he delves into the neuroscience of how our brains navigate the world.
This book approaches the topic of the neuroscience of navigation from the following angles: stories of hikers who got terrifyingly lost after stepping briefly off a designated trail, areas of the brain involved in navigation and the history of how those areas were discovered, and our knowledge so far of human navigational abilities and limitations. There's even a helpful appendix at the end detailing what you should do if lost in the wilderness, and also how to improve your navigational abilities. The author does a great job distilling the main neuroscience findings into relevant and concise chapters. The main ideas covered are the two strategies for navigation (hippocampal vs striatal, one is flexible, the other is autopilot) and the integration of head direction, grid, and place cells to navigate an environment.
Here are some of the most interesting things I learned from this book:
- Many hikers who are lost for days or eventually die are found really close to a trail or from where they started. Amanda Eller stepped off a trail in a dense forest in Hawaii and was lost for 17 days. She was found only 7 miles from the parking lot where her car was parked, and only a mile from the coast. She faced a lot of public ridicule and criticism. However, other studies have shown that under cloudy conditions, humans are very poor at even walking in a straight line. In one study, people walked for 4 hours and on average ended up only a mile from their starting location. This could really happen to anyone it seems.
-My educational background is in neuroscience, so I was generally familiar with grid cells, place cells, and head direction cells, but I learned a lot more about them from this book. I had no idea that place cells weren't topographically organized and I was really surprised to learn that the organizational structure of place cell ensembles has not been discovered yet, so mysterious! It was also really interesting to me that place cells fire in unique assemblies, while grid cells fire in set clusters, mapping a coordinate system that can then be applied to a map created by the place cells.
-I've read so many times that there is an inherent biological difference between males and females in spatial navigation abilities, and it was so refreshing to see a book that advocates for that difference being culturally entrenched because of data like: more gender-equal countries having no gender difference in scores in Sea Hero Quest, and interventional studies in which women play video games for a few hours and are then more similar to men in spatial rotation ability.
Overall, I thought this book was well written, informative, did an exemplary job drawing on primary sources instead of just the sexiest person who recently said an idea, and I admired the author's humility. I gave it four stars because the author gets really carried away with the evolutionary biology chapter, which ends up being totally irrelevant to any of his points. So that detracted from the smooth flow of the book somewhat. Otherwise, great read, totally recommend.
I quite liked this book. It's a topic I think most people would find pretty interesting, given how integral it is to our daily lives, but most people, including me, don't know much about it. The author states that this book is an attempt to understand the shortcomings of his own brain. He is a self-professed poor navigator, and is fascinated with those who aren’t. In this book, he delves into the neuroscience of how our brains navigate the world.
This book approaches the topic of the neuroscience of navigation from the following angles: stories of hikers who got terrifyingly lost after stepping briefly off a designated trail, areas of the brain involved in navigation and the history of how those areas were discovered, and our knowledge so far of human navigational abilities and limitations. There's even a helpful appendix at the end detailing what you should do if lost in the wilderness, and also how to improve your navigational abilities. The author does a great job distilling the main neuroscience findings into relevant and concise chapters. The main ideas covered are the two strategies for navigation (hippocampal vs striatal, one is flexible, the other is autopilot) and the integration of head direction, grid, and place cells to navigate an environment.
Here are some of the most interesting things I learned from this book:
- Many hikers who are lost for days or eventually die are found really close to a trail or from where they started. Amanda Eller stepped off a trail in a dense forest in Hawaii and was lost for 17 days. She was found only 7 miles from the parking lot where her car was parked, and only a mile from the coast. She faced a lot of public ridicule and criticism. However, other studies have shown that under cloudy conditions, humans are very poor at even walking in a straight line. In one study, people walked for 4 hours and on average ended up only a mile from their starting location. This could really happen to anyone it seems.
-My educational background is in neuroscience, so I was generally familiar with grid cells, place cells, and head direction cells, but I learned a lot more about them from this book. I had no idea that place cells weren't topographically organized and I was really surprised to learn that the organizational structure of place cell ensembles has not been discovered yet, so mysterious! It was also really interesting to me that place cells fire in unique assemblies, while grid cells fire in set clusters, mapping a coordinate system that can then be applied to a map created by the place cells.
-I've read so many times that there is an inherent biological difference between males and females in spatial navigation abilities, and it was so refreshing to see a book that advocates for that difference being culturally entrenched because of data like: more gender-equal countries having no gender difference in scores in Sea Hero Quest, and interventional studies in which women play video games for a few hours and are then more similar to men in spatial rotation ability.
Overall, I thought this book was well written, informative, did an exemplary job drawing on primary sources instead of just the sexiest person who recently said an idea, and I admired the author's humility. I gave it four stars because the author gets really carried away with the evolutionary biology chapter, which ends up being totally irrelevant to any of his points. So that detracted from the smooth flow of the book somewhat. Otherwise, great read, totally recommend.
February 16, 2022
Captivating, entertaining and eye-opening from start to finish. Chris is an amazing story teller. I am one of the lucky ones who was able to make it home after wandered perilously off route during a solo hike on a remote island in Japan. This book speaks to me on many levels.
October 2, 2024
This is an interesting slant on the typical neuroscience pop-sci book. Kemp uses his own atrocious navigational ability as the frame to explore how brains perform the complex sequences of tasks required to move around in the world. My biggest takeaway from this book is just how much spatial reasoning underlies seemingly disparate cognitive functions. The lesser takeaway is the importance of somatic elements to wayfinding: whether consciously or not, we're constantly integrating all kinds of sensory and proprioceptive data to track our whereabouts. Without the body, what could you know about where you are? Probably not much.
While this stuff is fascinating and Kemp is a good storyteller, the book does drag at times. It feels padded out in parts and too cursory in others. I got the sense Kemp prefers anecdotal yarn-spinning to wandering in the scientific weeds. While there's tantalizing material here on place cells, grid cells, etc., mostly Kemp falls back on a shrug of resignation at the complications of cognitive processing. I was fine with that because my interest is dilettantish at best, but your mileage may vary. This isn't the best neuroscience book I've read but it's far from the worst.
While this stuff is fascinating and Kemp is a good storyteller, the book does drag at times. It feels padded out in parts and too cursory in others. I got the sense Kemp prefers anecdotal yarn-spinning to wandering in the scientific weeds. While there's tantalizing material here on place cells, grid cells, etc., mostly Kemp falls back on a shrug of resignation at the complications of cognitive processing. I was fine with that because my interest is dilettantish at best, but your mileage may vary. This isn't the best neuroscience book I've read but it's far from the worst.
March 2, 2025
This one took me a while to finish! Definitely because I was trying to read more fun books in between.
Overall, I’m very impressed with the writing of this book. Don’t be fooled - I really don’t admire neurology or the brain that much, but I wanted to read this book to maybe force myself to come around to liking it.
I think I learned a lot about navigation and, per usual, know that there is still so much to be learned! Not a short read, but fun if you want to read a book that is academic and somewhat mystical.
As far as nonfiction books go, I don’t love any of them. But I guess, I’m happy to have learned something? I can’t say I’ll gravitate towards a book like this anytime soon, but who knows! I’d definitely read this than The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo!
Reminder to future self: FU on research from Richard Smeyne and Vibol Heng
Overall, I’m very impressed with the writing of this book. Don’t be fooled - I really don’t admire neurology or the brain that much, but I wanted to read this book to maybe force myself to come around to liking it.
I think I learned a lot about navigation and, per usual, know that there is still so much to be learned! Not a short read, but fun if you want to read a book that is academic and somewhat mystical.
As far as nonfiction books go, I don’t love any of them. But I guess, I’m happy to have learned something? I can’t say I’ll gravitate towards a book like this anytime soon, but who knows! I’d definitely read this than The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo!
Reminder to future self: FU on research from Richard Smeyne and Vibol Heng
October 22, 2024
An interesting trip through the neuroscience of navigation. Some stretches with shaky social science. But overall an interesting short overview of the field.
April 14, 2022
There are many types of people in this world (the book gets into that a bit, no two brains are exactly alike, like fingerprints or snowflakes), but how people are reviewing the book makes me giggle a bit.
This book in a way reads almost like a novel, not like it has plot line, but the way it describes people and places. Describes what people look like, how they are moving their body through a space, what a certain arc or tower will look like. For me I don't care if a person has a beard or gray hair, I'm more interested in the science bit (heck I usually skip descriptions in fiction novel too). But for some people in made the book easier and more enjoyable to read.
So if you are a person that usually has a hard time getting into science books, that you find them boring, this book will probably be more to your liking. If you're the type of person that would prefer not to have the human anecdotes, it's still a good book with lots of information and I would still recommend it, it just might not be the most enjoyable book.
My favorite bit out of the book, is the knowledge that our brains vote. The majority is what we decide/interpret from said vote. Fun little bit of knowledge :)
This book in a way reads almost like a novel, not like it has plot line, but the way it describes people and places. Describes what people look like, how they are moving their body through a space, what a certain arc or tower will look like. For me I don't care if a person has a beard or gray hair, I'm more interested in the science bit (heck I usually skip descriptions in fiction novel too). But for some people in made the book easier and more enjoyable to read.
So if you are a person that usually has a hard time getting into science books, that you find them boring, this book will probably be more to your liking. If you're the type of person that would prefer not to have the human anecdotes, it's still a good book with lots of information and I would still recommend it, it just might not be the most enjoyable book.
My favorite bit out of the book, is the knowledge that our brains vote. The majority is what we decide/interpret from said vote. Fun little bit of knowledge :)
April 22, 2024
I finished this book a while ago, only getting around to jotting down my thoughts now. Perhaps this will be interesting to see how the distance of several months tempers my feelings. This was a surprisingly interesting book, I hadn't considered the internal neurological mechanisms of orientation and navigation before, though I've often gotten lost, so that bit was quite familiar. All the technical detail of how the brain manages (and can fail) to understand space was fascinating; I'm still a bit surprised that our mental maps of geographic space also are little geographic areas, like a literal tiny map rather than some sort of abstract mesh of neurons. Honestly a lot of the specifics have drifted away from me after putting this book down, but the depth and breadth of this particular field of neuroscience has stuck with me. Now when I get lost, I ponder if I ought to blame a malfunctioning place cell, or is it one of the other ones? I'd recommend this book to anyone who has gotten lost and wants to know the how and why of it.
The only other distinct memory I have from this book: Holy moly the author is bad at navigation, they bring it up often as framing, but it's just 11 out of 10 badness at navigating, unimaginably bad getting-lost-in-a-straight-hallway levels of bad. It does add some occasional (if unintentional) levity to the book, and that bit stuck with me strongly.
The only other distinct memory I have from this book: Holy moly the author is bad at navigation, they bring it up often as framing, but it's just 11 out of 10 badness at navigating, unimaginably bad getting-lost-in-a-straight-hallway levels of bad. It does add some occasional (if unintentional) levity to the book, and that bit stuck with me strongly.
August 25, 2023
A book about how humans navigate which says almost nothing about how humans navigate… fucking connectomics, I tell ya’; takes the life right out of neuroscience.
March 5, 2024
this is one of my new favorite books of all time. i now understand not only why i am bad at directions, but why i am also clumsy. i have learned so much
March 11, 2024
I liked the beginning a lot but it was a little too much for me to understand some of the middle.
July 1, 2024
Not as insightful or deeply researched as I had hoped. Could have been half the length without the personal asides.
April 11, 2022
I enjoyed this book very much. It reminded me of a combination of Bill Bryson and Mary Roach and gave such fascinating information about the brain. And it mentioned two of my favorite Occupational Therapy senses (I was hoping they would come
up in a book about navigation) — vestibular and proprioception!
up in a book about navigation) — vestibular and proprioception!
June 13, 2022
Kemp is like the Kelly Clarkson of popular science non-Fiction!
August 28, 2024
This was an incredibly interesting book that broke down complicated ideas very well so they were quite understandable. I really enjoyed it.
February 9, 2023
Wow, as a Geographer how did I not know this stuff!? Fascinating and accessible summary of the state of the neuroscience of navigation. There are multiple brain functions that combine to give us our sense of direction. There are people who are bad at directions - it's just the state of their brain. People with problems in certain parts of the brain may navigate strangely. We have cognitive maps, we have place cells that tell us where we are on the cognitive map, and we have head-direction cells that tell us what way we're facing in our cognitive map! Research summaries of fascinating human and animal experiments, stories of people who got lost, the effects of GPS on our navigational ability, etc. Makes me want to do neuroscience research!
June 20, 2023
As someone with geographic dyslexia, I loved this book. Extremely well written, informative, and even funny. Highly recommend.
March 9, 2024
the brain is such a beautifully complex thing to try to understand, and Kemp does a phenomenal job of making something so complex so easy to follow! his combination of storytelling, science, and real-world application makes for a great read. if you’ve ever been or ever find yourself curious about our brain’s crazy ability to navigate, give this one a read!
August 7, 2024
he’s just like me fr…..
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September 26, 2022Very informative.
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