Mind Electric

A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains

By: Pria Anand

Narrated by: Pria Anand

Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

Named a Best Book of Summer by The Globe and Mail (Toronto), Publishers Weekly, and Book Riot
The Observer (London)’s Summer Reads Select

In this collection of medical tales “reminiscent of Oliver Sacks...the best of medical writing” (Abraham Verghese, author of The Covenant of Water), a neurologist reckons with the stories we tell about our brains, and the stories our brains tell us.

A girl believes she has been struck blind for stealing a kiss. A mother watches helplessly as each of her children is replaced by a changeling. A woman is haunted each month by the same four chords of a single song. In neurology, illness is inextricably linked with narrative, the clues to unraveling these mysteries hidden in both the details of a patient's story and the tells of their body.

Stories are etched into the very structure of our brains, coded so deeply that the impulse for storytelling survives and even surges after the most devastating injuries. But our brains are also porous—the stories they concoct shaped by cultural narratives about bodies and illness that permeate the minds of doctors and patients alike. In the history of medicine, some stories are heard, while others—the narratives of women, of Black and brown people, of displaced people, of disempowered people—are too often dismissed.

In The Mind Electric, neurologist Pria Anand reveals—through case study, history, fable, and memoir—all that the medical establishment has overlooked: the complexity and wonder of brains in health and in extremis, and the vast gray area between sanity and insanity, doctor and patient, and illness and wellness, each separated from the next by the thin veneer of a different story.

Moving from the Boston hospital where she treats her patients, to her childhood years in India, to Isla Providencia in the Caribbean and to the Republic of Guinea in West Africa, she demonstrates again and again the compelling paradox at the heart of neurology: that even the most peculiar symptoms can show us something universal about ourselves as humans.

Critic reviews

"Author Pria Anand narrates her thought-provoking examination of the wonders and vulnerabilities of the human brain. In the process she blends memoir, history, folklore, and medical facts...Her narration is both accessible and relatable. Listeners will learn a great deal about the brain, as well as myths, prejudices, and cultural traditions that have affected the treatment of neurological diseases."

I didn't know this was primarily an autobiography.

Not a fan of this book. A few parts were interesting. Maybe it picked up but I stopped listening some time after her long raid on being pregnant and child birth.
I'll probably finish this in the future, but right now I'm just bored.

The author narrated this book. Her narration is lovely. She's very talented.

A journey through medical mysteries

Pria is an amazing story teller. She goes seamlessly from family history through her own experiences with difficult cases displaying empathy and expertise.

The weaving of neurology and geography with infinite empathy

Pria is a wonderful narrator of her own book. What struck me most is her ability to weave the stories of neurology with the geography of different lands. Her imagination is vivid, and her power of observation so acute that I felt that I was in Maracaibo, Venezuela or in Guinea Conakry. It is rare to find a neurologist who has such empathy for people with voices in their heads. Pria has added to my knowledge of the complicated brain, in such an effortless way, bringing out Dostoevsky to relay important information. She is a unique story teller.

More Science and less Politics

I have listened to or read several books about biology in general and the brain in particular. This author sems to be more interested in political rhetoric than in discussing the fascinating human brain. Every malady affects women, gays, trans people and minorities more than white people, particularly white males. I only lasted a couple of chapters before I threw in the towel.

I hope that this author is not teaching future doctors. If so, they will be harangued about the evil past of white scientists and the horrible white male oppressors of the present. I get enough liberal claptrap just by existing nowadays. I listen to non fiction books because of fascinating subject material. What can be more interesting than the human brain? You won't find it in these pages.