I’ve always loved trivia, fact, and almanac types of books. Whether it’s because I have a Renaissance Soul, undiagnosed ADD or a similar condition, I’m not sure. But anything I can pick up and indulge in just a few of its hundreds of bite-size nuggets of information, I am sure to enjoy. And that’s how I made my way through Brain Candy: Science, Paradoxes, Puzzles, Logic, and Illogic to Nourish Your Neurons, the latest from Garth Sundem.
Sundem, who previously penned Geek Logik and The Geeks’ Guide To World Domination, has collected hundreds of essays, hacks, puzzles and paradoxes on the inner workings of the brain and entertainingly tied them all together in Brain Candy. Some of them you may recognize, like the Hermann grid, but many others will be new and interesting to you. Few entries exceed much more than a page and by the time you’re finished with Brain Candy, you’ll have learned all about game theory, logic fallacies and brain biology — but in fun and fascinating ways that keep you engaged and reading on to the next article before you know what you’re doing.
Along the way, you’ll learn about Adam Wilson, who telepathically tweets just by thinking in 140 characters or less, how hummingbirds are like Chuck Yeager when it comes to courtship (plus, other economics of mating), how country music kills, and the relationship between engineering, autism and Lego. Plus, Brain Candy is packed with dozens of quizzes, tests, exercises and advice to help you train your brain. Where else can you learn about the latest neurological studies and psychological research on one page and glance over to read about insane and inbred European imperators on the next? It’s definitely an engrossing, quirky and fun book!
Disclosure: Three Rivers Press sent a review copy of Brain Candy to GeekDad.
