subtitled The Biggest Mysteries of the Human Brain. And who better to tackle the subject and bring it to audiences in a highly accessible manner than Jorge Cham, creator of the comic strip <a href="https://phdcomics.com/">PHDComics</a> (based on his own adventures in academia while studying robotics) and co-creator of the highly-rated PBS cartoon Elinor Wonders Why, and Dwayne Godwin, a practicing neuroscientist, professor and former graduate dean?

For centuries, philosophers and biologists have pondered the role of the mind in human functioning, eventually adopting multidisciplinary efforts to better understand how the brain works and the correlation between mind, feeling and identity. Misters Cham and Godwin do a frankly amazing job of distilling what we've learned on this subject into one elegantly written and amusingly illustrated volume.

Each chapter title is a question that most people have asked themselves at least once in their lives. Whether it's asking why we feel the way we feel, what our brains are capable of or the nature of consciousness, the chapters all delve into common aspects of how we think and interact with the world around us. Short interlude comics break up the longer chapters, which are themselves speckled with cartoons that humorously underscore the text. As a big fan of the exercise theory of continuing neuroplasticity, I loved the multiple ways in which the book encouraged the on-going growth of neural connections via both serious (if uncomplicated) text and light-hearted illustrations that work together to engage multiple parts of the brain.

So yeah, as a bit of a brain nerd -- some of my favorite parts of my undergraduate degree in Information Technology/Computer Science were the bits mapping programming to human intelligence. Multithreading for life, baybeeee! -- this pop sci book was definitely up my alley. But even if you don't have a science background, this book makes for a wonderful introduction to the brain, what it can do and how it affects our everyday lives.

It's also surprisingly timely. Tho written well before the current stages of sociopolitical nightmare, this one bit in particular felt like a necessary rebuke to people who would argue that empathy, of all things, is a sin:

<blockquote>[E]mpathy is critical to love. Putting ourselves in other people's shoes and caring for others are integral parts of what it means to love.</blockquote>

This, ofc, comes in the chapter "Why Do We Love?" which is followed by "Why Do We Hate?", an equally important topic that speaks of the perils of hatred as an addiction and how we can overcome it (and yes, addiction gets its own chapter here, too!) So this isn't just a textbook about brain parts: this is a book that meaningfully engages with who we are as people and how we can better understand both ourselves and others. That it does all this with humor and grace is a testament to the authors' ability to communicate complicated concepts in ways that are not only easy but fun to read. Recommended.

Out Of Your Mind by Jorge Cham & Dwayne Godwin was published January 28 2025 by Pantheon and is available from all good booksellers, including <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/15382/9780593317358">Bookshop!</a>

This review originally appeared at <a href="https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/03/26/out-of-your-mind-by-jorge-cham-dwayne-godwin/">TheFrumiousConsortium.net</a>.

So, a neuroscientist and a cartoonist walk into a bar ... or rather into a book -- and this is the result; a journey into the innerworkings of our mind told in a surprisingly cutesy way.
I suppose a nicer way to describe cutesy would be " easily accessible." Which this book definitely is. It appears to be targeting most ages and education/intelligence levels. Therefore, at time, it can come across as a bit ... simplistic.
Personally, I prefer nonfiction to punch up and have a humorous tone to it, so this didn't quite fit the bill. But my main goal for reading it was edification, and sure enough, it proved to be a nice revisit of the things I already knew and a pretty good way to learn more.
So aside from a bit of pandering to the genpop, this was worth a read. Thanks Netgalley.

Have you ever wondered what exactly is the mind?
Where does love, happiness, memory, hate live in your brain?
Those are just some of the questions Out of your mind tries to answer.

Thanks to @pantheonbooks for the ARC through @netgalley and for the finished copy of this book!

Author and online cartoonist Jorge Cham and neuroscientist Dwayne Godwin paired up to bring a book that tries to answer some very complex questions.
Neuroscience is not an easy area of science to explain, because almost everything is not physical. You see the brain, when you study it, but you cannot see thoughts, or memories or consciousness. So I think their goal was already a hard one to achieve, but they manage to bring explanations that are easy to follow and understand.

The chapters highlight different topics, including history of the research in the area, not only in anatomy and neurology, but many times including psychology and other science fields. They also go through what we do and don’t know.

From the description I’d been expecting more illustrations and comics, so I was surprised by how much text there was. I think more would have better, specially in the comics that synthesize topics and making it easier to get through.

Overall I think the writing was well done, and in entertaining manner.

This was a fun deep dive into psychology and neuroscience. This is a book I probably would probably not have picked up but since I got an arc of it, I oddly found myself loss in the book. I love the little comic strips, they added such a fun take to what I was reading, because I am probably one of the furthest people who actually understands neuroscience. It actually makes me want to try to read more like this.

Nonfiction that is accessible to kids with a short attention span is rare, and one that hits on topical issues is even rarer. This will be read in the high school.

Thank you Pantheon for the free book. My thoughts are my own.

Our brain is a big piece of who we are and what defines us. But have you ever stopped to think about how it does what it does (or how humans are figuring out what it does)? Who you are, what you think, what you do, and what you feel happens within and is defined by your brain. This book makes accessible heaps and heaps of information dedicated to what we know, the beginnings of what we don’t know, and who figured it out and how. Through narrative and illustration (with a fair sprinkling of comics), the lay reader is walked through masses of complex and abstract material provided in an easy-to-understand way. And it doesn't take itself too seriously. It's like sitting down with a genius friend who also has a good sense of humor and who is great at putting into words the complex realities that they manage on the daily. I wish I'd had this book in high school or college, but I'm so happy that I have it now--it's never too late to learn!

Author and online cartoonist Jorge Cham and neuroscientist Dwayne Godwin dive into complex questions about consciousness, personality, memory, emotion, and perception. The chapters here highlight what we do and don't know about the human brain.

This book is really fun and inventive in how it explains the brain. It synthesizes information from imaging studies, historical data, psychological research, and experiments. Starting with the question of identity, the chapters build on that to process the difficult questions about love, hate, consciousness, memory, and perception.

The cartoons are scattered to highlight points and give a little levity, but it's a very easy-to-read and digest book. In fact, I was so engrossed that I was reading for hours longer than I expected to!

The writing is well done and clarifies a lot of thorny questions that we have about ourselves and humanity. I really enjoyed the book and learned more about the brain and its functions. I wouldn't be surprised if this helps start people down the path of researching neuroscience and psychology.

Overall, the cartoons didn't contribute much to the text. Unlike with What If? (to which this book is compared), these were never funny, just reiterating what was said in the text before it in a fashion very like a textbook. The longer form comics were an exception, and the book would have been stronger without the interruption of the interstitial doodles.

The book should not have brought up xkcd, as that comparison rang through my head through my reading. It is not like xkcd. It lacks absurdity and depth.

The book wanders away from the supposed point on occasion but that was perhaps unavoidable. It is strongest when it gets into the unabashed science, backed up by strange anecdotes. When it meanders and philosophizes as though the reader isn't following along, I fought the urge to skim.

Overall, a readable and mildly entertaining book that scratches a little deeper into the topic--though not enough. I would have liked it to use more humor (which the text states makes learning more compelling) as it often doesn't rise much beyond a first year psychology textbook into pop science.

This illustrated guide explores the wonders and mysteries of the human brain. It tackles big questions like consciousness and free will in a playful way.

This informative book offers some insights I hadn’t heard before. The comics probably work well in a print book, but are difficult to read on a phone. They aren’t accessible using text-to-speech. If they were just illustrations, that wouldn’t be so bad. But they’re not; the content in the cartoons isn’t replicated in the text.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

i had a lot of fun reading this book as a person in an adjacent field. sort of like a look-at-the-forest-not-the-trees approach. i think it's very accessible to basically anyone with a passing interest in psychology/human behavior/neuroscience. i've also been a huge fan of jorge cham's comics for the longest time, so this was such a treat!
what i didn't like though was reading this on an iPad (the netgalley iPad app). the comics/drawings were SO pixelated, i felt like i needed an eye exam. the other text was okay and so i know it's the editing of the book that's the problem. this issue was also super visible on the laptop, unfortunately, which kind of ruined my enjoyment of the book a bit.

Okay, so this is not the typical book that I would read, but once I started I couldn't stop. Literally nine times out of ten I joke around that I have no brain, but the insight that this book gives you into your brain is really nice. Reading about why I feel certain emotions and want to hang on to them because of the hormones that they produce is nice. I really enjoyed reading this and even the quirky comic strips were nice and kept teh book interesting enough.