Popular Science Review - How the Mind Works

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Review - How the Mind Works - Steven Pinker

The better kind of time management books begin by telling you there's no such thing as time management - time ticks away at the same speed whatever you do (but you can do something about the way you use it). Pinker's book on the workings of the mind takes an equally dangerous starting point of admitting that he doesn't know how the mind works (and neither does anyone else).

If that were all there were to it, this would be a very short book indeed, but luckily Pinker is able to explore what we do know about thought and the mechanisms that lie behind it. On the whole this is done in a very lucid and often amusing way (though, as seems to be the fashion, he does make the book rather longer than it really needs to be), and this a recommended addition to the popular science bookshelf.

Even if you normally limit yourself to 'hard' science, this is the rare exception where making an exploratory step towards the biologists will really reward the effort. Don't know what to think about it? Then you definitely need the book!

Also in hardback: Also in audio:

Reviewed by Peter Spitz

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