What’s a review of a book about epilepsy doing on a writing website? Well, here’s the explanation. I think one of the means by which we can improve our writing is by reading examples of great writing, regardless of whether or not it involves our own genre. Brainstorm is an example of great writing.

I started reading it in a bookshop, and discovered that I couldn’t put it down. I simply had to buy it. The book works for the following reasons.

First, before I read it, I thought that epilepsy manifested itself as either very short-lived ‘absences’ or fits. It turns out that its symptoms are astonishingly varied. Each chapter tells a different story, but the common thread is that the difficulties experienced by each subject did not obviously suggest epilepsy as the cause.

That’s where the second point comes in. The subtitle of the book is ‘Detective stories from the world of neurology’, and the book does indeed live up to this description. The descriptions of the process of finding out what was wrong, and the discussion of what to do about it, were fascinating.

Thirdly, the author writes in such a way as to elicit our sympathy and empathy. The subjects come over as real people, not as anonymous, dry-as-dust case studies.

If you want to read a really well-written book that will reveal interesting facets about the working of the brain, this is the one. Here’s the link:

Brainstorm

(Please note that this is an Amazon affiliate link.)