My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey

My Stroke of Insight A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor (based on 174 customer reviews)

(Hardcover)
Edition: 1
Author: Jill Bolte Taylor
Publisher: Viking Adult

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Most useful review as voted by customers:
190 out of 199 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 3/13/08

Important

This is, indeed, a first-person description of stroke by a scientifically and dare I say it -- spiritually -- sophisticated person. The author describes a range of experiences that make sense given our knowledge of localization of function. I'm not sure that such a detailed and consistent report by a scientist is available anywhere else. As such, this story is unusual and important. Moreover the author reports how she turned her stroke into an opportunity for profound wisdom and insight. Amazing stuff! And this may save lives.

Personally, I don't share all the author's ideas about strict functional localization in the brain... but that is secondary and doesn't detract from my admiration of her remarkable contribution.

My enjoyment of this book was enhanced considerably by the material and links at the author's website. She has posted a number of video and audio presentations, radio shows, etc.

107 out of 122 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 8/3/08

Valuable information about stroke; but the book has its flaws

I debated over whether to give this book three, four, or five stars. The information that Dr. Taylor presents about the brain and stroke is worth five stars, without question. But I have a few complaints about how she presents this information; and lots of complaints about the "self-help" aspects of this book. I almost wish I could post two reviews of this book -- a five-star review for the information about the brain and stroke; and a two-star review for everything else about the book. I ended up giving the book a (somewhat charitable) compromise rating of four stars (but in some ways the four star rating is too low; and in others it is way too high).

Let's start with the positives: This book is a must-read for anyone who is interested in the human brain and how it functions, any health care professional or caregiver who deals with stroke patients, anyone who has a friend or family member who has had a stroke, and anyone who is concerned about the possibility that they might someday suffer from a stroke (a statistical possibility, since about 700,000 Americans will have a stroke this year). If you want to know about what it's like to have a stroke and to recover from it, this is the book to read. Dr. Taylor is a brain scientist who had a stroke and lived to tell her story of survival, recovery, and rehabilitation. The information she provides about her personal experience is priceless for anyone who wants to better understand what happens when someone has a stroke, and what is needed for recovery and rehabilitation. This information is also of extreme value for anyone who wants to better understand how the brain works to make us who we are. Five stars for the information on the brain and stroke.

But now I must deal with the negatives, and comment on the "two-star" aspects of this book. First of all, the writing style is a bit amateurish; but we can excuse Dr. Taylor for that, since she's a brain scientist, not a professional writer. But I do have a bit of a problem with how she tells her story. What bothers me about her account is her description of what was going on in her mind while she was having the stroke and during her recovery. She describes herself as having certain thoughts that just don't seem plausible given her description of the mental impairments she was suffering at the time. She makes a point of saying that the language centers of her left cerebral cortex had been impaired, silencing the inner voice in her head, leaving her mind in a state of peaceful quiet. Yet she goes on to describe thoughts that were running through her mind. (How could she have such thoughts without that inner voice?) I got the feeling that she was actually describing the thoughts that went through her mind years later as she was recalling her stroke experience. (But, given the fact that our minds actually "construct" our memories as we reflect on our past experiences rather than simply recording our experiences and playing them back for us with perfect accuracy, this sort of thing is to be expected.)

But what really annoyed me about this book was that, in the last few chapters, it turned into a sappy, shallow, self-help book of the "learn-to-love-yourself-and-think-happy-thoughts" variety; and includes what has to be the single corniest sentence ever written in the English language: "When my bowels move, I cheer my cells for clearing that waste out of my body." (p. 156) In these later chapters, the book even delves into "New Age" stuff like "energy dynamics", Feng Shui, and "Angel Cards". I felt that this seriously compromised the integrity of the valuable information that Dr. Taylor presented about brain science and stroke recovery. This information is so valuable that I would still recommend the book in spite of its many shortcomings; but I would encourage you to take the last few chapters of the book with a grain of salt.

99 out of 103 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 3/13/08

A fantastic journey to the center of our being

"Oh my gosh, I'm having a stroke! I'm having a stroke! And in the next instant, the thought flashed through my mind, this is so cool!"

Who better than a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist to give you a guided tour through the brain? Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a cranial hemorrhage that shut down her left brain when she was 37 years old. She knew exactly what was happening to her, she has almost total recall of the event, and she has the ability to describe her experience with absolute clarity.

In 1996 she awoke with a sharp pain behind her left eye, and as her speech and motor functions failed her, as she melted into what she called a euphoric stupor and lost all sense of where "Dr. Jill" ended and the rest of the universe began. Nothing unfolds the way you'd expect. Taylor sees her stroke as a gift of unparalleled awareness: the shattering of the self-created box we live in that we call "life."

"When the shower droplets beat into my chest like little bullets, I was harshly startled back into...reality. As I held my hands up in front of my face and wiggled my fingers, I was simultaneously perplexed and intrigued.

"Wow, what a strange and amazing thing I am. What a bizarre living being I am. Life! I am life! I am a sea of water bound inside this membranous pouch. Here, in this form, I am a conscious mind and this body is the vehicle through which I am ALIVE! I am trillions of cells sharing a common mind. I am here, now, thriving as life. Wow! What an unfathomable concept! I am cellular life, no -- I am molecular life with manual dexterity and a cognitive mind!"

Taylor's book tells how she orchestrated her rescue as "my earthly body dissolved and I melted into the universe," and proceeds through brain surgery and eight years of slow recovery of her left-brain functions. (She learned to read with The Puppy Who Wanted a Boy.) It gives hope for anyone who is brain-injured: stroke patients, accident victims and Iraq war vets. It gives medical professionals and caregivers clear, no-nonsense information about the shortcomings of conventional treatment: "I needed people to come close and not be afraid of me."

And, perhaps most remarkable of all, Taylor is a wonderful speaker. Amazon won't permit a direct link, but I urge anyone who reads this review to Google on "Ted Talks Jill Bolte Taylor". "The New York Times" wrote:

"Dr. Taylor recounts the details of her stroke and the amazing insights she gained from it in a riveting 18-minute video of her speech at the Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference in Monterey, Calif., last month. Her fascinating lecture includes a detailed explanation of the differences between the left and right sides of the brain, complete with an incredibly cool prop -- a real human brain."

This book is also fascinating.

44 out of 51 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 11/23/07

Fantastic!

I've been recommending My Stroke of Insight to nearly everyone I know. Jill provides a great moment-by-moment account of her stroke, a potentially devasting event many of my relatives have experienced. I deeply admire her determination to work through it. She also does one of the best jobs of describing brain function I've ever run across. I came away with a renewed sense of understanding, wonder and hopefulness about the capabilities of the human brain. Highly recommended!

22 out of 25 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 3/8/07

My Stroke of Insight

An absolutely wonderful journey by a brain anatomist who suffered a stroke. Her resilience, her deep understanding of the condition and lessons to be learned by her and other health care professionals is outstanding. A must read for anyone whether faced with a health problem or not. Is a mind awakening experience!!!

16 out of 19 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 1/7/08

Very inspiring and educational

Not only is this book an awe-inspiring story of a woman's complete recovery from a devastating stroke, but I learned more brain anatomy and function than I did in nursing school. A must read.

13 out of 14 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 6/10/07

My Stroke of Insight

A well written and easy to understand in layman's term explanation of a serious stroke. While not everyone will have such a dramatic recovery from stroke, the narrative gives hope and "insight" into the recovery process.

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