Blogging on the Brain

Today was the first meeting of my Oliver Sacks reading group, and I actually think it went pretty well! We’re reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, which is one of my ALL-TIME favorite books. It was actually recently listed as one of Discovery Magazine’s 25 Greatest Science Books of All Time – a list that includes people like Darwin, Galileo, Einstein, and Aristotle (Freud didn’t even make the list – he was an honorable mention!). Not that we need a list to tell us this book is good, but still. It can’t hurt.

We have a great group of participants (several grad students from the neuroscience program, one from church-state studies, one from sociology, one from English, and the manager of the History department!) and they all seemed to be pretty excited about the book! Most of them had only read the preface and introduction (although several admitted to not being able to keep themselves from reading the first case – a good sign!), but really that’s all it takes to get a feel for the depth and genius of Dr. Sacks.

I’m also trying something brand new (for me) with this group: a wiki! That’s right, I actually set it up myself and invited members and hopefully they’ll get in there soon and start playing around. This is very exciting for me. As with most technology, I’m completely terrified to try it, but when I finally do, I realize it’s really  not all that difficult, and the rewards far outweigh the work it takes to learn it – oh, and thanks to all the super-smart programmers out there that actually make this stuff user-friendly!

So here’s to a semester of wonderful reading and (hopefully) great discussion!