Use your next mental health day to delve into the inner working of your brain by tapping into some of these brainy titles on the library’s Digital Branch.
Female Brain / Male Brain
by Dr. Louann Brizendine
Louann Brizendine, M.D. is a practicing clinician, best-selling author, public speaker and media commentator who specializes in the relationship dynamics that result from the neurobiology of male and female brains.
In her first book, Female Brain, Brizendine uses neuroscience to reveal “how the unique structure of the female brain determines how women think, what they value, how they communicate, and whom they’ll love. ” Below are just a few of the things that Brizendine attempts to explain about the female brain:
- A woman remembers fights that a man insists never happened
- A teen girl is so obsessed with her looks and talking on the phone
- A woman knows what people are feeling, while a man can’t spot an emotion unless somebody cries or threatens bodily harm
- A woman over 50 is more likely to initiate divorce than a man
In her follow-up book, Male Brain, Brizendine allows us to join her as she “turns her attention to the male brain, showing how, through every phase of life, the male reality is fundamentally different from the female one.” Brizendine again uses brain science to explain why the male brain:
- is a lean, mean, problem-solving machine. Faced with a personal problem, a man will use his analytical brain structures, not his emotional ones, to find a solution.
- thrives under competition, instinctively plays rough and is obsessed with rank and hierarchy.
- experiences such a massive increase in testosterone at puberty that he perceive others’ faces to be more aggressive.
Click below to hear Dr. Brizendine speak about her brain research.
And for those of us who want to go a little more fictional, the Digital Branch has something to feed your brain as well.
Brains: A Zombie Memoir
by Robin Becker
From the publisher: “Convinced he’ll bring about a peaceful coexistence between zombies and humans if he can demonstrate his unique condition to Howard Stein, the man responsible for the zombie virus, Barnes sets off on a grueling cross-country journey to meet his maker. Along the way he recruits a small army of “super” zombies that will stop at nothing to reach their goal. There’s Guts, the dreadlocked boy who can run like the wind; Joan, the matronly nurse adept at reattaching decaying appendages; Annie, the young girl with a fierce quick-draw; and Ros, who can actually speak. United they embark on an epic quest to attain what all men, women—and, apparently, zombies—yearn for: equality.
Brains is a blood-soaked, darkly humorous story that will have readers rooting for Barnes and his zombie posse to the very end.”
Click below to hear what the author of Brains has to say about her writing.
All of these titles are available from the library’s Digital Branch in downloadable formats.
Collection Connection 