Pinker’s Choice

ByCarl Zimmer
November 23, 2003

It’s too early yet for reviews of Soul Made Flesh to start rolling in (it pubs in January 2004), so I’m still in an anxious state. But this is promising: The Daily Telegraph in London asked several leading writers to name the favorite book they read in 2003. Yesterday it printed the results. Steven Pinker chose Soul Made Flesh.

He writes: “Today the idea that every aspect of human experience consists of activity in the brain is second nature to some people, and an ‘astonishing hypothesis’- or even sacrilege – to others. But few are aware of the ancestry of this idea. Soul Made Flesh tells the fascinating story of how people first became aware of one of the most radical thoughts the human mind has ever had to think.”

(Pinker has not invented time-travel. He managed to read a 2004 book in 2003 because my publisher sent him the bound galleys this fall. Glad they did.)

I won’t overload this space with reviews when they do finally come; instead, I’ll be posting them here.

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