The Mind Electric
'Lyrical and spellbinding' New Scientist
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The Mind Electric
Narrated by:
Pria Anand
Buy Now for £12.99
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Narrated by:
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Pria Anand
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By:
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Pria Anand
About this listen
'Superb, compelling, delightfully labyrinthine' Telegraph
'The book fans of Oliver Sacks have been craving' The i
'Lyrical and spellbinding' New Scientist
'The best book I have read in years' Psychologist
A young woman channelling the voice of the Holy Spirit. A mother whose children have been replaced by changelings. A family cursed by a mysterious inability to sleep. Pria Anand's patients come to her with myriad peculiar symptoms, but they all have something in common: their diagnosis always hinges on a story. Her task as a neurologist is akin to a detective's, piecing together the clues in a patient's account with the tells of their body in order to settle on a diagnosis.
In her gorgeously lyrical, passionate and humane first book, Pria Anand shares stories of her own patients alongside her own experiences as a doctor, a mother and a patient, in order to explore all the bizarre ways in which our brains go awry. Moving from the Boston hospital where she treats her patients, to her childhood years in India, to Isla Providencia in the Caribbean and to Guinea in West Africa, she demonstrates again and again the compelling paradox at the heart of neurology: that the strangest symptoms experienced by any single individual can show us something universal about being human.©2025 Pria Anand
Critic reviews
Luminous ... an engrossing exploration of the brain's extraordinary powers and terrifying frailties (Publishers Weekly)
The book fans of Oliver Sacks have been craving
The Mind Electric is stunning, full of wisdom, revelation and poetry. I was continually awed by Dr. Pria Anand's insight into the darkest shadows of the human experience. I loved every minute of this remarkable book and I will never think of my brain and body in the same way again. (Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire)
A rich and humane work, compelling in its compassion for the personal stories behind the symptoms that bring people to clinics. Pria Anand deftly weaves her own story of change with those of her patients (Gwen Adshead, author of The Devil You Know)
At once epic and intricate, personal and universal, The Mind Electric is a fascinating journey through the curious capacities of our brains. A moving and compelling testimony to the importance of telling - and listening to - the stories of what makes us human (Elinor Cleghorn, author of Unwell Women)
Pria Anand just might be the heir to Oliver Sacks. Her gorgeous writing and incisive analysis reveal the marvellous neurological underpinnings of our existence. A stunning debut! (Danielle Ofri, author of What Doctors Feel)
Pria Anand shares the strangeness and sheer wonder of our brains in a testament to the wildness inside us all
Pria Anand braids together science and narrative in this magnificent exploration of how the mind shapes - and upends-the story of our life. The Mind Electric is as gorgeous and complex and astounding as the brain itself (Laura van den Berg, author of State of Paradise)
Vivid and entertaining, The Mind Electric Takes us into the strange and sometimes wonderful landscape of neurological impairment. This is a beautifully written book (Tanya Luhrmann, author of How God Becomes Real)
Anand's writing is reminiscent of Oliver Sacks and the best of medical writing. I found the tales of her personal experiences and the dive into history fascinating. The Mind Electric is a compelling read (Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone)
A beautifully composed debut by a US neurologist about the peculiar ways individual brains behave and how this can teach us something universal about being human. If you love the work of Oliver Sacks, you'll embrace this as I did
Superb. Anand writes with circumspection and sensitivity, and with creativity and verve as well. Delightfully labyrinthine ... a compelling tapestry of stories somehow both discrete and happening all at once, its threads overlapping and interweaving with layers hidden underneath
Powerful, persuasive ... transcends the limitations of the popular science genre and raises broader philosophical questions concerning what it means to be human
I'm sure that if it were possible to attend a lecture given by the author, one would be enthralled: however, I feel that this is not the case when listening to an entire book being read by her.
There are professionals who specialise in reading audiobooks (usually actors), and this is the case for a reason. A person who has never been taught performance skills-or whose voice has not been trained-is often incapable of producing a mellifluous, measured, varied and pleasant flow of speech. (Indeed, probably many people who are trained never attain competence in what is a very challenging occupation.) Obviously, there are exceptions: the wonderful Oliver Sax himself was one, but this is not the case here.
I'm very sorry to say it, but I feel that Pria Anand has missed a huge opportunity with this book. I believe she was extremely ill-advised to read it herself, because she simply doesn't have the skills needed to be pleasant to hear (to this reader, anyway).
Instead of being a real treasure that I would return to repeatedly, to be honest, I just about made it most of the way through. It was not the joy it could-or should- have been. It's a huge tribute to the content of the book that, even with the reading, I still give it four stars overall.
Fascinating and frustrating
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