The author, an accomplished neuroanatomist, suffers a massive CVA at the age of 37. She takes the reader through the events of her stroke and the recovery. (8 long years of recovery!) She gives basic brain science for understanding, and speaks from the heart. The grouch in me wanted to poo-poo the whole book when she started in with how she uses "angel cards" to start her day. I ignored the alarm in my head, screaming, "New age kook! Abort! Abort!" But it was too late. I was suckered in. And rea...

whoa. i probably should have paid more attention to the little tagline under her name that proudly proclaims "the singin' scientist" and put it down immediately. but that wasn't how it worked.see, the author is a brain scientist who had a stroke. i heard her speak on NPR and she was insightful and funny and had very interesting things to say about the brain, so i put the book on hold at the library and a eagerly picked it up a few days ago. i loved the section of the book that gave us an intro c...

5 stars means, to me, that everybody should read it, not that it's necessarily a perfect book.Everybody is fairly likely to have a stroke, watch someone who is having a stroke, know someone who is recovering from a stroke, or at least visit a rehabilitation clinic or nursing home. The recommendations at the end are important. First there's a page that reminds you what a stroke feels like, and tells you to get help immediately.* Then there's a list of advice on how to help someone who is in thera...

I absolutely couldn't stand this book. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that until I was over a third of the way into it, at which point I had to finish it, detesting myself the entire time.The woman who wrote this book is a neuroanatomist who had a unique and amazing opportunity to document the experience of having a hemorrhagic stroke from someone who understands how different parts of the brain function.That being said, she is not a brain surgeon. She is not a clinician. And yet from the way s...

Everyone who has ever had a stroke must have this book read to them, slowly. Everyone who ever knew anyone who had a stroke must read this book. The author was a brain scientist with a Ph.D. in neuroanatomy. She described her experience of having a stroke, the loss of her faculties, her surgery, and recovery over a period of almost a decade, to someone like the woman she was before the stroke.Her description of how to help a stroke victim on their return from a hospital are remarkable. The relat...

When this fascinating book, My Stroke of Insight, came into my life...my husband picked it up at the library...I thought, Nice title! and that was that. I wasn't up for a book about a person having a stroke. Even when I heard that the author, Jill Bolte Taylor, is a brain scientist, I didn't appreciate how riveting and instructive her narrative could be. Fortunately, after a barrage of raves from my husband, I finally started to read it. Taylor was 36, and alone at home, when she had her stroke....

I have a feeling I would have enjoyed this book more if I weren't a neuroscientist myself. First the good parts -- her account of lucidly experiencing a hemorrhagic stroke, when combined with her basic knowledge of human brain structure, was the most interesting part of the book. Furthermore, she provides excellent advice for doctors, nurses, and caretakers of patients dealing with a stroke and its aftermath.Where the book began to go wrong for me was its overly simplistic view of brain structur...

I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. I wanted this book to be several other books than the one it actually was. I found it alternately fascinating and incredibly irritating. Taylor is a brain scientist who had a stroke and recovered enough to write about it. The chance to learn about what that experience was like seemed compelling enough to me to start reading the book. When her left brain went offline due to the stroke, she experienced only living in her right brain --what she d...

I'm a neurologist, so I approached this book from a different angle than most readers, I imagine.In short, it was not what I expected. Although she was a neuroanatomist prior to the stroke, the book is not science-y at all. That is both good and bad.The good:A first-hand account of being afflicted by a brain bleed (with aphasia, or inability to produce language, and other losses of function) is priceless. In medicine, we have a great deal to learn from knowing what our patients are going through...

This book wasn't what I was expecting. I expected to read a memoir of sorts. Maybe a before and after or even a during the process what was happening. And JBT does write "lightly" about those things. But mainly she is writing a self-help book that seeks to influence the rest of us to embrace the right side of our brains. As a brain scientist, she has a stroke then discovers she is one with the universe. Her brain and her cells are beautiful! Oh how lovely the world and everyone in it! The inform...

Amazing story about a neuroscientist who observes herself as she has a stroke. She is not expected to recover, but with her knowledge, the dedication of and help from her mother as well as keeping naysayers out of her life Bolte regained all of her pre-stroke functioning. An important and inspirational memoir about the ability of the brain to heal, otherwise known as neuroplasticity. Read this or listen to Bolte's amazing Ted talk.

There's great value here - but you have to wade through a lot to get to it. Taylor's step-by-step recalling of her hemorrhagic left-hemisphere stroke was both enlightening and tedious. She was so acutely aware of what was happening - enough to describe in full detail here - but unable to really do anything about it. Once discovered, completely unable to comprehend and communicate, she goes through months of recovery, including a surgery to clear the blood clot. Her mother gently and compassionat...

From the anatomically correct stained glass brain on the front (which the author made, a second version displayed at Harvard) to the back cover praise, this is an intriguing, educational, dually mindful book about the 50 trillion cells that make a human being go. Dr. Bolte Taylor's journey back into both sides of her brain, after the left hemisphere of her brain took an unauthorized 8 year sabbatical is a story that needs to be required reading for staff at nursing homes, assisted living centers...

Jill Bolte Tayor was a 37-year old neuroanatomist when she experienced a massive stroke that severely damaged the left hemisphere of her brain. My Stroke of Insight is her account of what happened that day, her subsequent 8-year recovery, and how these events changed her life for the better.The most interesting part of the book for me was Bolte Taylor’s discussion of what happened to her on that morning in 1996. With her scientific background, Bolte Taylor was in a unique position to observe the...

I read this years ago --- still own it. I thought the insights were amazing --and a fascinating story. --Emotional too....This was a woman's 'life'.Interesting how books pop into our space when we are meeting new friends on Goodreads....Brings back memories of books we read! A treasure in itself! -- make a new friend = re-visit books we have read.............nice deal!

Oh, gag. Yes, really. I'm glad the author used her stroke to find nirvana, but honestly, stroke just ain't this pretty.The first half of this book, more or less, was a page turner and I was fascinated. Dr. Taylor was a successful 37-year-old neuroanatomist who suffered a hemorrhagic stroke as a result of a congenital condition called arteriovenous malformation (AVM). Partly because of her training and knowledge and partly, I suspect, because of the way the stroke's effects developed and progress...

For me, the most fascinating part of this book is the description of the actual stroke and the immediate aftermath. To have suffered such a traumatic brain injury and live to tell about it in such detail is amazing. Doubly amazing for verbalizing what a brain is like when it goes non-verbal.One funny detail during the stroke is that, while she's rapidly losing the ability to conceptualize numbers and language, somehow part of her brain still knew she needed HMO approval prior to using emergency

Warning: This is long, contains ranting, and is rather harsh at times.From a biology perspective, this book was crazy cool, as are most things biological. The brain is ridiculously amazing. It completely blows my mind whenever I think about it. However, from a writing perspective, I was not a fan. I would now like to preface the rest of my analytical, left-brain comments by saying that: The author had a stroke, it is absolutely incredible how well she has recovered, and I have no idea whatsoever...

You couldn't invent a more interesting premise: Dr. Taylor, a brain scientist, has a major stroke and goes through years of rehabilitation after the left hemisphere of her brain is severely damaged. She ultimately recovers and records her detailed memories of the stroke and its aftereffects.Dr. Taylor has given a talk on this subject at a TED Conference -- see the video at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ji... This is what drew me to reading My Stroke of Insight, and the book does deliver on

This book is an amazing story of a neuro-scientist who experiences her own stroke. She not only recognizes obvious symptoms like loss of speech and one-sided paralysis, but she can envision what is happening on the cell level in her brain.Fortunately, with the extreme patience and love of her mother, she eventually regains enough function to live on her own and resume work. Some parts of her job are too stressing and now too difficult, so she works out a different job description with her boss.