Subject: New book From: Dale Purves <purves@xxxxxxxx> Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2010 13:45:27 +0800 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>Colleagues: You may be interested in this new book_ “Brains: How They Seem to Work”_ (Pearson/Financial Times Press, 2010) "Dale Purves has been a leading figure inbrain science for 40 years: He has made numerous discoveries, founded departments, and written major textbooks. In Brains, he tells the story of his scientific journey and intertwines it in an elegant and accessible way with two others: the uneven progress of the field over the past half century and the new view of brain function to which the field's shortcomings have led him. Some neuroscientists are likely to disagree with Purves' heretical theories, but none can afford to ignore them." --Josh Sanes, Harvard University "Dale Purves' Brains is my favorite sort of reading—an engaging and intelligent scientific autobiography full of vivid personal and historical accounts; the story not only of a life but of an intellectual pursuit. Purves has a unique voice, lively, outspoken, and very human—and his love of science comes through on every page." --Oliver Sacks "The 'Brains' in Dale Purves' book are both the focus of his research and the intellectual giants with whom he mixed in his remarkable career. At one level Brains is a charming autobiagraphy; at another a vivid personal account of 50 years in the evolution of neuroscience. But it also lays down a challenge to the mainstream view that simple, sequential analysis of nerve cells and their responses can explain the apparentl impossible task of seeing the world as it really is on the basis of the infinitely ambiguous retinal image. Brains is a delight—for its insights into both the scientists and the science of the brain." --Colin Blakemore, Oxford University ”Brains” is an engaging tour of human neuroscience from one of its most distinguished and opinionated practitioners. Dale Purves is a lively and informative guide to the field, having been at the scene of some of its great discoveries and having made many important discoveries himself." --Steven Pinker, Harvard University "A rare account of both the modern history of key discoveries in brain research by someone who was there and responsible for many of them and also a heartfelt account of the joy of it all. Dale Purves has given us an inside view of a life in science and explains with clarity what it all means." --Michael S. Gazzaniga, University of California, Santa Barbara, "This book is many things. It's the memoir of an immensely likeable human (who I only previously knew as a distant giant in my field). It's people with strong personalities that give lie to the notion that science is an affectless process. But most of all, it is a clear, accessible, affectionate biography of neuroscience. This is a terrific book." --Robert Sapolsky, Stanford University "Both highly entertaining and educational. A masterpiece." --Bert Sakmann, Max Planck Institute of Medical Research -- Dale Purves M.D. Professor of Neurobiology, Duke University Professor and Director, Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders Program Executive Director, A*STaR Neuroscience Research Partnership Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School 8 College Road, Level 05, Singapore 169857 Office phone: +65 6516 4386 Mobile: +65 9296 9314 Fax: +65 6557 0729 email: dale.purves@xxxxxxxx <mailto:dale.purves@xxxxxxxx> purves@xxxxxxxx <mailto:purves@xxxxxxxx> Website: www.purveslab.net <http://www.purveslab.net>