Anthony Johns

I was surprised by this book. I am very interested in the brain and the whole how/why we think and do as we do. I was excited to read it but also wary that it might be over my head. I am happy to report that I was able to follow it very well. I both like and dislike this book. I will give my reasons for liking it first.

I liked that I found it easy to read. I liked that I was able to find a lot of useful and interesting things in it. There were a number of things that I agree with. There were, also, some things that were new to me. I appreciate the author using his personal experience to help us. All of this worked for me.

What didn't work for me was that I felt the author wavered between explaining things to an audience of children and an adult audience. I didn't feel that he was entirely addressing one or the other, but was going back and forth. This was a bit difficult for me as, at times, I felt that I was being spoken down to. I also did not care for, what felt to me, being hit over the head with evolution. I understand that you choose not to believe and I am fine with it. I am open minded about religion. The author had a traumatic experience with religion and I personally felt, at times, it played into his feelings on religion.

My verdict on this book is that there is a lot of useful information in it. My favorite is the retraining of the brain. I absolutely believe this will be important in mental health practices. A scientist wrote this book so I was expecting that science would be heavily represented. The author does admit that religion has played an important role in survival for many. I applaud that as I do find that some type of religious belief does help many. I also found useful and interesting, the author's view on love and mate selection. I would recommend people to read it. It is fascinating and informative.

I came across this book from BookTasters. The author provided an electronic copy for review purposes. As, I believe, this copy was not a published version I cannot make an informed decision regarding editing issues that were noted in the unpublished version I was given. I have no idea if the blue background was just on my copy or it is used in the published version. I did not particularly care for it. I did not come across any reason for it so I am unsure why it was used. I will not be using editing issues in my star rating decision.
… (mer)

Anthony Johns is an engineer, and in this short book he looks at the brain and the human body from that perspective: that we are chemical machines, and our brains are low-voltage, highly efficient computers. They come with a basic operating system installed, and get "programmed," starting in the womb, by the general environment, experiences, and the intentional education efforts of the adults we rely on. He includes some very practical approaches to addressing and correcting mental and emotional disturbances created by unhealthy, destructive experiences.

This includes the effects of his own negative experiences of being abused by a choirmaster in his own church. This helped create an unhealthy, negative relationship with religion for him, which led to later mental and emotional disturbances which he has had to work through. Much of this book, without going into excess detail about his own personal experiences, is concerned with laying out the basic tools used to overcome and emerge from that stressful period.

It's also a useful set of tools for helping to understand and work through less extreme stresses.

Because of Mr. Johns' attitude toward religion, this book will be more easily useful to the non-religious. Depending on your own religious beliefs and your degree of sensitivity around them, it may still be useful anyway; I found much of it very practical in its approach. Mr. Johns, unlike some passionate atheists, does acknowledge that religion developed and became widespread because it helped people survive. He is absolutely entitled to his own negative feelings about religion, having had experiences we know are very destructive for the individual.

I will confess to being very mildly amused by a brief discussion acknowledging the common roots of Christianity and Islam, without any mention of Judaism, of which they are both offshoots.

Overall, this is an interesting book with a practical life approach to understanding your brain and its daily workings, with some interesting blind spots that may make it more or less useful for particular individuals.

It is, I think, necessary to mention that it did not receive professional editing. It has some of the weaknesses that can come from that, errors of word choice and punctuation that typically the author's eye does not catch because the author knows too well what he meant to say. It slowed my reading bu did not deter it, nor should it deter you if this is a useful book for you to explore.

I received a free pdf of this book from the author, in exchange for an honest review.… (mer)