THE TALE OF THE DUELING NEUROSURGEONS The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery

Henry Leyva is the perfect narrator for Sam Kean’s history of brain research and its reliance on accidents, diseases, and chronic conditions to reveal what we know now. In true Kean fashion, the academic approach is enlivened by anecdotes that illustrate the complexity and resilience of the human brain. Leyva’s enthusiastic and lively performance delivers all the gravity, empathy, wonder, and humanity the book requires. It’s crazy but true, fascinating and serious—a wondrous audio experience stuffed with Civil War soldiers with phantom limbs, Siamese twins that speak in stereo, people who believe their loved ones are imposters, and poor Phineas Gage, who lived for decades after an iron tamping rod went through his head—but with a different, coarser, personality. A.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2014]