Left Brain Right Brain

A new edition of the bestselling classic – published with a special introduction to mark its 10th anniversary This pioneering account sets out to understand the structure of the human brain – the place where mind meets matter. Until recently, the left hemisphere of our brain has been seen as the ‘rational’ side, the superior partner to the right. But is this distinction true? Drawing on a vast body of experimental research, Iain McGilchrist argues while our left brain makes for a wonderful servant, it is a very poor master. As he shows, it is the right side which is the more reliable and insightful. Without it, our world would be mechanistic – stripped of depth, colour and value.

Does your child: • Have impressive intellectual abilities but seem puzzled by ordinary interactions with other children? • Have deep, all-absorbing interests or seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of certain subjects? • Bring home mediocre report cards, or seem disengaged at school, despite his or her obvious intelligence? If you answered "yes" to these questions, this book is for you. Author Katharine Beals uses the term "left-brain" to describe a type of child whose talents and inclinations lean heavily toward the logical, linear, analytical, and introverted side of the human psyche, as opposed to the "right brain," a term often associated with our emotional, holistic, intuitive, and extroverted side. Drawing on her research and interviews with parents and children, Beals helps parents to discover if they are raising a left-brain child, and she offers practical strategies for nurturing and supporting this type of child at school and at home. Beals also advises parents in how best to advocate for their children in today’s schools, which can be baffled by and unsupportive of left-brain learning styles.

Dozens of books have been published recently on the errors and biases that affect our judgments and choices. Drawing on cognitive science, their lessons are excellent for many kinds of decisions - consumer choice and financial investments, for example - but stop short of addressing many of the most important decisions we face in management, where we can actively influence outcomes and where competitive forces mean we have to outperform rivals. As Phil Rosenzweig shows, drawing on examples from business, sports and politics, this sort of decision-making relies on mastering two very different abilities. First, the analytical problem-solving skills associated with the brain's left hemisphere; and second, what Tom Wolfe called 'the Right Stuff': the ability to take calculated risks. Bringing fresh and often surprising insights to topics including confidence and overconfidence, the uses and limits of decision models, leadership and authenticity, expert performance and deliberate practice, competitive bidding and new venture management, Left Brain, Right Stuff, the myth-busting follow-up to The Halo Effect, explains how to perform when making even the most difficult decisions.

"Transformative...[Taylor's] experience...will shatter [your] own perception of the world."—ABC News The astonishing New York Times bestseller that chronicles how a brain scientist's own stroke led to enlightenment On December 10, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven- year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist experienced a massive stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. As she observed her mind deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life-all within four hours-Taylor alternated between the euphoria of the intuitive and kinesthetic right brain, in which she felt a sense of complete well-being and peace, and the logical, sequential left brain, which recognized she was having a stroke and enabled her to seek help before she was completely lost. It would take her eight years to fully recover. For Taylor, her stroke was a blessing and a revelation. It taught her that by "stepping to the right" of our left brains, we can uncover feelings of well-being that are often sidelined by "brain chatter." Reaching wide audiences through her talk at the Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) conference and her appearance on Oprah's online Soul Series, Taylor provides a valuable recovery guide for those touched by brain injury and an inspiring testimony that inner peace is accessible to anyone.

Jeffrey Freed and Laurie Parsons provide an effective method for helping children with Attention Deficit Disorder excel in a classroom setting. In straightforward language, this book explains how to use the innovative "Learning Styles Inventory" to test for a right-brained learning style; help an ADD child master spelling—and build confidence—by committing complicated words to visual memory; tap an ADD kid's amazing speed-reading abilities by stressing sight recognition and scanning rather than phonics; access the child's capacity to solve math problems of increasing, often astonishing complexity—without pen or paper; capitalize on the "writing and weaning" technique to help the child turn mental images into written words; and win over teachers and principals to the right-brained approach the ADD child thrives on. For parents who have longed to help their ADD child quickly and directly, Freed and Parsons's approach is nothing short of revolutionary. This is the first book to offer them reason for hope and a clear strategy for enabling their child to blossom.

In this 10,000-word essay, written to complement Iain McGilchrist's acclaimed The Master and His Emissary, the author asks why - despite the vast increase in material well-being - people are less happy today than they were half a century ago, and suggests that the division between the two hemispheres of the brain has a critical effect on how we see and understand the world around us. In particular, McGilchrist suggests, the left hemisphere's obsession with reducing everything it sees to the level of minute, mechanistic detail is robbing modern society of the ability to understand and appreciate deeper human values. Accessible to readers who haven't yet read The Master and His Emissary as well as those who have, this is a fascinating, immensely thought-provoking essay that delves to the very heart of what it means to be human.

In The Left Brain Speaks, but the Right Brain Laughs, physicist Ransom Stephens explains the interesting and often amusing tale of how the human brain works. Using understandable metaphors and easy to follow language, Stephens gives readers of any scientific level an introduction to neuroscience and shows them how things like creativity, skill, and even perception of self can grow and change by utilizing the body’s most important muscle. Fans of Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson will love Stephens’ down to earth attitude and those interested in science will appreciate his thoughtful explanations of scientific terms. The Left Brain Speaks, but the Right Brain Laughs is the perfect gift for anyone who wants to know what’s going on inside their head and how they can use that knowledge to make themselves the best humans they can be.