Book Reviews - Elkhonon Goldberg

Bit of a hotchpotch, this. It's pitched halfway between popular science and student textbook; and it's about a lot more than the frontal lobes, as well.

The lay reader will learn lots from this book about the structure of the brain. That's not to say, though, that they will necessarily understand a lot of what they've learned, because Elkhonon Goldberg has a tendency to bombard them with material from his vast storehouse of professional knowledge without consideration of the fact that they will be unfamiliar with the context of a lot of it.

That said, there is much fascinating information here about the (probable) different roles of the left and right cranial hemispheres; the evolution of the brain; and the crucial role of the frontal lobes in co-ordinating, structuring and "civilising" the activities of the more ancient parts of the brain, which do its "donkey work". There is also interesting discussion of the often devastating cognitive consequences of damage to the frontal lobes, or to the pathways that connect them to the rest of the brain.

Informative and absorbing though this book often is, its author comes across as much more of a "meat-and-two-veg" scientist than his ingenious neurological peers Oliver Sacks and VS Ramachandran. He lacks their warmth and humour, and I also think he lacks a lot of their insight. He's a sucker for trendy but shallow IT analogies - the brain as computer, the frontal lobes as Internet search engine - and his assertion that in the information age "sharp will be beautiful" struck me as both naff and dubious. There's just a hint of arrogance and smugness to his tone.

Still, all told this is a pretty interesting book: good brain fodder.