A Very Short Tour of the Mind: 21 Short Walks Around the Human Brain

Corballis (The Recursive Mind) goes for a long shot but falls far short: in attempting to pack nearly half a century of research on the human mind into just over a hundred pages, he gives each subject short shrift. The author, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Auckland, dives right into his discussion of some of the brain’s most interesting features and functions, addressing topics as far-ranging as left-handedness, “lies and bullshit,” the interstices of language and music, facial recognition, and the synesthetic title of a Nabokov novel (Ada). Each gets a two-to-four-page treatment—some accompanied by illustrations—and every entry is interesting. But Corballis isn’t kidding when he calls these “short walks.” Many chapters feel conspicuously incomplete; one entitled “Why Italians Gesticulate,” for example, suffers from a glaring lack of, well, Italians. Add another demerit for no discernible guiding principle. At the end, readers will fell less like tourists in the hands of a well-informed guide, and more like sheep behind a lost shepherd. Illus. (July)