Make no mistake: This is a HEFTY tome. When I read “14+ hours reading time” I nearly scarpered. But I settled down with it and, relishing the conversational tone of the book, went on the journey of the changing mind.

Niggly bits first: It is a tad wordy for a textbook. There are a great number of proofreading issues. The most annoying one first: ALL numerals have simply been left out of the ARC copy, i.e. there are no dates, times, ages, percentages or bulletpoint numbers, which make a great number of sections devoid of any meaningful information and thus completely unreadable. Quotes are not marked as quotes. Also, references to monographies are not given (a superscript number would suffice). The reference list is largely unformatted and interspersed with notes. The index links to...no page number. A table of contents is missing. Graphs are missing. X- and y-axis labels are missing in some graphs, all of which sadly leaves an impression of sloppy presentation.

The good bits (and there are loads): The book does give a great deal of examples to illustrate the more complex aspects of brain development and introduces the reader into the mind-boggling (pardon the pun) complexity that is our brain and its profound influence in how we age. For example: Innate personality traits shape the way we age - at any age. Decades of how the brain collates information, overwrites historical data and finds patterns, creates... old age wisdom. “Memory is a process, not a thing; it resides in spatially distributed neural circuits, not in a particular location.” An unlocatable essential part of who we are is undoubtably worrying, but need not be.

The “take-away”: Stay curious and “use it or lose it”. Spend 10 minutes walking on rugged terrain instead of hours on the treadmill - your brain will have to work harder in the former situation. Eat a varied diet of everything (perhaps less in quantity). Forget so-called “brain training”, that will at best hone a very narrow set of skills.
Sleep well and long enough - but not too long. Challenge yourself - that’s why being institutionalised in a care home makes you deteriorate more quickly.
Cherish your social contacts - loneliness is deadly. Do something that has a purpose for you.

Science is racing to find something to halt/delay senescence. Research into telomeres, genetic on/off buttons, immunotherapy are promising, but real breakthroughs and their practical application are far off as yet. There is a vast range of possible interventions being researched right now, from hormones, vitamins, off-label pharmaceutics and microdoses of hallucinogenics to psychotherapy and all the way to neural implants - watch this space, it’s exciting times!

This book is ram-packed with information and there are heaps of things to take away from it: new perspectives and above all: hope and optimism about the ageing mind.

As our population ages and as mental as well as physical wellness in an ageing population becomes more important we need to know more about the process of ageing. In this book neuroscientific concepts are applied to this question

There are many books on the market that aim to document how to grow old in a healthy and life-affirming manner, however, this is one of the few written and comprehensively researched by a respected expert in the clinical area of neuroscience. The facts and statistics mentioned throughout are proven and so can be relied upon as methods to implement to try to ensure you live a long and happy life. The Changing Mind is a thought-provoking and eye-opening account of what happens to our brain during the ageing process and it turns on its head some of the misconceptions we all appear to have been told about how deterioration, as we age, is inevitable when this is quite far from the reality of the situation. Dr Levitin hits you with inspiring and optimistic information and I feel there are so, so many people who would gain new knowledge and reinvigoration from what they read between these pages, just as I did.

I know one of the most prominent brain diseases of our time, Alzheimer's, is one of the biggest fears many people face when ruminating on cognition and how to keep the memories we have so beautifully collected alive, therefore I am pleased there are plenty of tips to keep the mind sharp and everything intact in this book. That being said, we all roll the dice on such matters and at the end of the day you may be lucky or you may not. Levitin charts the brains development from birth right through to elder years and unlike other nonfiction titles of this nature, I found this both eminently readable and absolutely fascinating. The case studies used to illustrate points made throughout the book were all interesting and if I’m honest I could’ve read another couple of hundred pages.

If you are looking for an easy, non-challenging read then this probably isn’t it but if you genuinely want to learn more about ageing and what we can do to age well this is a must-read. Many thanks to Penguin Life for an ARC.

This is a hard one to review, really, because in a way the book says exactly what it's going to do, and yet I didn't expect it to read like a textbook. That's my fault, I should have probably read more about the author's other work or really thought through what a neuroscientist's take on this topic would be, however I don't think I can be faulted for wanting it to read a little bit, well, easier? I studied psychology and am accustomed to the textbook speak there, but that doesn't mean I find it overly entertaining and seek it out in my leisure reading.

This one was a DNF for me - I would prefer to find this information in a more easily-digestible format. Recommended for others who prefer a more scientific explanation with a bit more jargon!

Many information were known to me, but I found always fascinating the way they can be put together, in this case regarding old age, to give us a better picture. Plus I appreciate when the author debukes bullshits about the brain and age and diet and so on.

Molte delle cose scritte in questo libro le conoscevo, ma trovo sempre molto interessante come poi le informazioni possano essere "messe insieme" in modo diverso e fornire quindi un diverso quadro d'insieme, come in questo caso sul cervello che invecchia. Inoltre apprezzo molto che l'autore si sia messo a identificare tutta una serie di boiate (facendo nomi e cognomi) sia sul cervello, che sull'etá o la dieta.

THANKS NETGALLEY FOR THE PREVIEW!