The Book, At Last

I'm very happy to report that, while my author copies have not yet arrived at my house, Amazon and Barnesandnoble.com apparently have my new book in stock. This is a good day. If you've been following the blog over the past year, you've been there for the submission of the initial manuscripts, the summer of revision, a few hints and snippets from the work in progress, and an early review or two. Now the fun really begins.

For those of you who missed some of those previous entries, the book is called Mind Wide Open: Your Brain And The Neuroscience Of Everyday Life. Here's the way I described it in an earlier post: "The book is an attempt to look systematically at the question of what brain science can tell you about yourself as an individual. There are a number of great books that ask questions like: How did the brain evolve? Or: how does the brain work? This book asks a related, but more intimate question: how does your brain work? In what ways can science shed light on your own personality traits, emotional habits, mental blindspots or strengths? In the book I've set myself up as a kind of guinea pig for this experiment: I take a number of tests that evaluate different cognitive faculties; I do a number of explorations with neurofeedback; I help design a series of fMRI experiments on my own head. I also have conversations with some of the world's leading brain scientists, who function as guides through this amazing inner landscape.

In many ways, the tone of the book will be familiar to those of you who read Emergence -- it's popular science with a literary gloss. (One of the sub-themes of the book is the way neuroscience echoes the insights of novelists like Woolf and James.) But there's a new first-person component to this book, something I've never really tried before in print. I talk about how understanding the brain has changed the way that I've experienced a number of personal events: 9/11, the birth of both of our sons, various frightening events, and a few happy ones as well. In a way, I've been developing this first-person voice simultaneously in the book and here on the blog, so I already have you all to thank for putting up with this work-in-progress over the past nine months."

Since I last talked about the early reception of the book, we've had a number of reviews come in, all of them very favorable. Publisher's Weekly said that it "not only gives the reader a gee-whiz glimpse at an emerging field, but also offers a guide for incorporating its new insights into one's own worldview." Popular Science -- which is currently featuring the book on the front door of its web site -- calls it "mind-bending." (In the positive sense of the phrase.) And there's a really nice review in the February issue of Oprah's magazine, which as you can imagine is very exciting given that Oprah is just about the most powerful person in publishing. Much more to come, including some exciting media appearances by yours truly, but it's a great start -- particularly considering the official publication date is still almost a month away.

Now here's the part where I ask for your help. All of you who read this blog -- people who were fans of Emergence, or Interface Culture, or FEED -- you are my posse. You are my tribe. Emergence got some very nice reviews, but it continues to sell largely because of word of mouth -- people giving it to friends, or talking it up on their blogs, etc. So if you're interested in reading the book, and interested in seeing it do well, here are a few things you can do to help.

1. Head over to Amazon (or BarnesandNoble) to buy a copy now. A good online sales rank in the weeks before publication can be a very positive sign for buyers at real-world bookstores, as well as a sign that a book has some energy behind it. Last week, we were about 1.4 million on the Amazon chart; this week we got as high as 5,000. It'd be interesting to see if the blog can drive that number up over the next few days.

2. Go back to Amazon and buy two more copies for your closest friends.

3. If you're a real-world bookstore shopper, stop by and pick up a copy or two, and if they don't have it yet -- please put in an order. Advance orders can also help with the behind-the-scenes industry buzz about a book.

4. If you have a blog, please do help get the word out that the book is available. And if you're reading it, please post your responses, positive and negative. (If you post negative things, I will of course be forced to flood your comments area with spam, but that's your decision.)

5. Come out to see me on the book tour, which will run on and off again from late January to early March. I'll be posting details about my appearances, but I'm going to be doing a number of events in New York, as well as events in D.C., Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, Houston, Chapel Hill, and Durham. Perhaps we can coordinate some kind of sbj.com meetup where we all go out for drinks after the reading. Or even before the reading.

6. The last thing you can do to help is really the most important one: enjoy the book, and let me know what you think. I believe this is the best thing that I've done so far, but I also feel strangely vulnerable about the book, because I'm a character in it, and because it talks about my life (and my brain) in ways that I've never tried to do in print before. Taking this tour through the brain sciences has transformed the way that I think about my own life in countless ways. I'll be fascinated to hear if it has the same effect on others.

Comments

[jkottke]

Steven, I set Junglescan onto the book so you can track the ASR uber-obsessively now.

[Emily]

Oprah! Congratulations. Steven, you are so money. I'm half-way through the book and it is awesome.

[Zack Lynch]

Down with Freud, up with Steven...867-5309!

Congrats!

[Susan]

wooohooo! way to go Steven! Can hardly wait to go out and find the book. Um... Us hicks up in Canada go to book signings too, dontcha know! =)
And just to be different... don't go to the east (blech) come out west where the real people are!
Take care ... and pullllllllllllleessssse! Update that sidebar! Thank-you M'Lord

[Alan Gregerson]

Congrats. Always great so see another author get some good distribution deals.

[Camilo]

You are asking that we, the readers, take the publishing world by its tail? Consider it done!

When are you going to be around NC? You could always do a virtual book tour (The one they use in allconsuming).

Congratulations!

[Jeff]

Congrats on the new book, Steven. Stand by to absorb the imminent crush of mad love from your fans...

[Rik Abel]

Hmmm...I could wait until April, when it is published in the UK. But who am I kidding? I HAVE to buy it now. Very much looking forward to reading it! Any chance of you coming over to London for the UK launch? I promise not to bombard you with my crackpot theories about how the brain functions holographically...

[diseño web]

muy buena

[diseño paginas web]

muy buena

[Andrew M]

I'm a neuroscience student reading Emergence at the moment. I have been intrigued just as much by the sections that have nothing to do with neuroscience. It really is an all-encompassing concept once you are encouraged to think about it, as this book achieves so well. Every page so far has had a thought-provoking idea to grapple with. I will recommend it to family and friends.

[Susan]

well darn it all anyways... It will NOT be released here in Canada until 'sometime' in February! rats! rats! rats! I so wanted to read it while I am recovering from RTC surgery on Feb 3rd.
rats rats rats .. double rats! waaaaaaaaaa! Can't do the online purchase thingy either.. waaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Curses foiled again!

Bookless in Canada :(:(:(

[Daniel]

Chapel Hill AND Durham. What makes the triangle so popular? Duke and UNC?

[Jeremy]

I clicked on the "Moral Capital" link on your sidebar and that seems to be a members only web site. Can you do anything about that?

[Christine Young]

Steve,

I just ran down to my local bookstore and they said they will do what they can to get some copies in stock - luckily I constantly have them ordering books so it should not be a problem. I also just ordered the copy off of amazon and I am looking forward to reading up.

Best of luck with the book - hopefully I will be able to stop around here more often.

[Vivek]

Steven: I tried contacting your agent to check you availability, but the URL doesn't seem to be operational. Anyhoot, several of us are trying to use the concept of emergence to model urban development in the Puget Sound region, and we would like to know if you have some time speak with several faculty and PhD students at the University of Washington during your trip to the UW bookstore (Feb 29th). We would be happy to provide breakfast, lunch or dinner and/or transport. Our labs are on campus and easily acccessible. As you have a following at the UW, we would love the opportunity to have an informal discussion with you.
Cheers, Vivek Shandas, PhD Candidate, Urban Design and Planning

[Greg Grosser]

Hi Steven,
I just finished your new book this weekend. I really enjoyed it. I have not read other work you have done, but this one will prompt me to investigate.

I have been on what seems like an extended search for meaningful bridges between the spiritual (non-religious) and scientific worlds. You are among those I admire who possess the insight and talent to communicate complex systemic relationships in a very thought provoking way.

Thanks for your work!

OBTW... do you have any feedback regarding habitual pattern modification using NLP or hypnosis-- as relates to initiating change and/or accelerated cognitative evolution (say, learning or conscousness)?

Thanks again for Mind Wide Open, very enjoyable.

Very Best Regards
gg

[Jasper Sky]

Cool topic, and what a great way to mosey around learning about something that fascinates you. During 1999-2000 I did the coursework for a PhD in neuroscience, so I'm kith and kin w.r.t. this particular fascination.

A question for Master Johnson: In your Discover article, you mentioned that there are several open-source online collaboration tools that would be useful for generating grassroots policy development efforts. It happens that friends and I are in the early stages of planning exactly such an enterprise, not for the US, but for Canada, where an election is coming up this Spring. I'm only semi-literate when it comes to software, so I need some good suggestions for an open-source environment which I can easily adapt to create an online Canadian policy development forum. Might you, Steven, or does any fellow blog-reader have any useful suggestions? I'd be very grateful.

Jasper Sky
Vancouver, Canada

[Joy]

I've been praising the book to all around me. I really enjoyed this although I sort of lost track after the first three chapters. I think I need to read it again.

After the first two chapters, I had a dream in which I started a day that I knew would bring some unpleasant situations by staring at a screen and mentally manipulating my theta waves by "painting"--sort of digitally coloring on a large screen. I didn't think "blue" and make it blue--rather I manipulated my brain waves through a spectrum until I reached a coded section that I knew would be optimal (and coincidentally would be a soothing color) to start the day.

I would love to see something like this really happen. What timeframe do you think is realistic for neuro-manipulation this way?

--Joy

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[venta pisos]

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[inmobiliarias madrid]

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[Dr.L.N.Rajaram]

The book truly opened my mind wide open. I am a PhD in Software Engineering and I have been struggling to understand the differences in the behaviours of novice and expert programmers while writing software and why do they both take hazardus shortcuts in spite of knowing the perils of costly debugging that they invariably end-up in. The book has given me great possibilities to pursue for getting people to write defect free software. I would be happy to collaborate with knowledgeable neuroscientists to apply brain science in making the efforts of knowledge workers more productive and defect free.
Rajaram

[Freda]

I heard you on Kuow Seattle today and wanted to comment that there are similarities between your observation and the writings of the Abhidhamma, the Buddhist Psychology. The Abhidhamma is attributed to the historical Buddha who lived 2500 years ago. IT was recorded some time later.

The Abhidhamma is well worth checking into if you have the interest. here are some links
http://www.abhidhamma.org/abhidhamma_philosophy_its_estima.htm

http://www.palikanon.com/english/intro-abhidhamma/book_i.htm

http://www.buddhanet.net/abhidh05.htm

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/buddhism/abhidama.htm

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/buddhism/abdmjnka.htm