Explores our brains' near-miraculous ability to arrange and re-arrange themselves in response to external circumstances. This title examines how this 'open architecture', the elasticity of our brains, helps and hinders humans in their attempts to learn to read, and to process the written language.
The hardback edition sold over 26,000 copies in the US, and was in "Publishers Weekly"'s 'Best Books Of 2007'. Contains many incredible insights into the brain, and a reminder of the amazing achievements of humankind. When you consider that reading is something humans invented only a few thousand years ago, which essentially means that our brains have been rearranged, then the intellectual evolution of humankind is endless.
'A brilliant book about how human beings learned to read and write. There's a superb explanation of the conditions that cause dyslexia - which Wolf points out, wouldn't have conferred an evolutionary disadvantage until very recently, and might even have been beneficial to some people.'
