Last year I decided to play in the ebook sandbox. I brought together some of my favorite pieces about the brain in an anthology I entitled Brain Cuttings: Fifteen Journeys Through the Mind. I teamed up with the publishers George Scott and Charles Nix, and we produced an ebook.
Along the way, we learned a lot. I recounted some of the lessons in this piece for the Atlantic, and others in this conversation with the writer Steve Silberman. Suffice to say, publishing ebooks is by no means a frictionless utopia for writers. Nevertheless it remains strangely addictive. Perhaps we writers get the same jolt of dopamine that readers get when they tap a glass screen and are rewarded with a new book.
It just so happens I now have some new material to keep fueling my addition. I’ve continued to write about the brain, and recently I selected another crop of favorites. This new ebook has made it down the digital assembly line, and is now available for $7.99: More Brain Cuttings: Further Exporations of the Mind (Amazon, Barnes & Noble).
You’ll find a range of subjects here. How a 100 billion cells use 100 trillion connections to create a working brain. How the ringing in our ears may tell us important things about the nature of consciousness. How dancing cockatoos may reveal how we’re pre-adapted to love music.
I hope you enjoy the book. The brain unfolds like a flower; the more I have explored neuroscience, the more it has rewarded me with new stories. I expect there will be many more to come.
Originally published December 15, 2011. Copyright 2011 Carl Zimmer.