PROUST AND THE SQUID The Story and Science of the Reading Brain

Proust, a metaphor for reading, and the squid, an analogy for early investigations of the nervous system, are meant to tease the curious into exploring a scientific treatise on the subject of literacy. The author integrates multiple disciplines to explain the evolution of the reading brain—its development and some common variations. Narrator Kirsten Potter facilitates the scientific vocabulary, words such as “retinotopic,” “logosyllabary,” “disambiguate,” and “metacognitive.” Speaking as the author, she explains all the difficult terms as they appear, transforming the formidable into the accessible. Potter's scientific fluency makes this challenging information easier to grasp and more enticing than it would be in print. Listeners may be surprised to learn how intellectual and biological transformations take place in their brains as they listen. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2008]