#205
Title: My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey
Author: Jill Bolte Taylor
Publisher: Viking
Year: 2008
192 pages
The 37-year old Dr. Taylor, a neuroscientist, was simultaneously horrified and fascinated to realize that she was having a stroke. Though many reviewers and interviewers focus on the insights she gained from her stroke, I was riveted by her descriptions of the physiological and behavioral processes she experienced in the first hours of the experience. The science is presented simplistically, which makes it generally accessible but may not satisfy a more sophisticated reader. Taylor's musings on right and left brain functions and moods are very interesting and may speak to the physiological seat of the sense of connection or oneness, whether you understand this as religious or as Freud's oceanic feeling. For me, though, the power of the narrative is Taylor's account of the stroke itself, both for her descriptions and for her ability to tell the story despite having had the experience.
For a science fiction novel that predates this book but has a long section with an uncanny similarity to Taylor's cognitive state during her stroke, read Connie Willis's Passage.
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