Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology

Paul Broks draws on his experience as a neuropsychologist to present a narrative about memory and personal identity. Macabre yet humane, unsettling but affecting, he writes about the experiences of his patients, and his experience as their psychologist. The stories are those of ordinary people whose extraordinary illnesses have much to say to everyone about who and what we are. They are also about chance, compassion, human fallibility and eccentricity.

Into the Silent Land is a stunning look into how the human brain constructs a "self," or the essence of who we are as individuals. Paul Broks fuses his own case studies, personal vignettes, philosophical debate, and thought-provoking riffs and meditations into a series of narratives that not only delve into the inner lives of his patients, but into a deeper understanding of how we define who we are.