The Man Who Tasted Words: A Neurologist Explores the Strange and Startling World of Our Senses

A superb book for anyone who’s interested in how our brains work and how this affects our perception of reality. We’re taught that there’s a real world out there, and our five senses feed information to the brain that tells us what it is. Turns out, that’s all wrong. For a start, there are a lot more than five senses. Second, the senses feed a tiny fraction of the available information to the brain, and the brain just kind of guesses at the rest. And third, the brain doesn’t just passively accept information, it feeds back predictions to the senses on what it expects to see. (And, perhaps most fascinating of all, it calls into question whether there even is such a thing as objective reality - who’s to say one brain’s model of the world is more or less accurate than somebody else’s, or whether they’re actually the same?)This has some important implications. When the sensory system is damaged, either by genetic mutation, physical injury, neurochemical imbalance, or whatever, the information it sends can be inaccurate, incomplete, or unreliable. So the brain fills in the rest, based on faulty data. And sometimes, it gets it very, very wrong. So you get people whose senses are completely mixed up - they perceive tastes or colors associated with vision or sound (synesthesia), or they can’t perceive objects in part of their field of view but they can tell if they’re moving. If you’ve read The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, you’ll be familiar with this kind of thing.Leschziner, a consultant neurologist in London, digs into dozens of case histories to illustrate how different people perceive the world differently. His style is very easy to read, and always entertaining, but packed with valuable information.Highly recommended.(Note: I received a free pre-release copy from the publisher.)

This is an accessible and highly readable book about, well, the five senses and what happens when one of them (or more) is compromised. The anecdotes to support the arguments Leschziner presents make this shine and kept me turning the pages. Synethesia might be familiar but imagine developing gruesome hallucinations after losing your sight. Fascinating stuff well presented. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. An illuminating and educational read.

Unique and fascinating glimpse into our senses. The author is a neurologist who walks the reader through some unusual cases and explains their unique diagnoses. He presents his patients as people, not just cases, drawing the reader into their lives to see how their ailments affect their everyday lives. While I’m glad not to need Dr. Leschziner’s specialized services, I wish I could find doctors as caring and determined as he seems to be. Very readable book, even for those with little medical expertise. #TheManWhoTastedWords #NetGalley

A very good book for those that want to know more about how we experience the world but still simply enough for those with out a degree

THE MAN WHO TASTED WORDSBY Guy LeschzinerPublisher: St. Martin's PressRelease date: February 22 2022This is a fascinating book about the 5 sences of sight smell touch taste and hearing and how the brain effects these senses and our sense of re a reality.He asks an interesting question from the start ...what sense could you live without if you had to choose? I first picked hearing as I'm losing my hearing now anyway. But as I read on I realized that I'm glad I chose hearing because I definitely couldn't live without the sense of touch as it is important to your place in the world.I loved this book as he had such interesting cases to showcase his examples of what he was trying to teach us which of course made the book so readable.If your interested in neurology or just interesting cases involving the 5 senses I highly recommend this book! It's an easy read and very informative!Thanks to Netgalley and St Martin's Press for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Bought as a gift.