The Takeaway
I was on The Takeaway this morning talking about irrational voters, Peter Jennings and why trying to multi-task is like running Microsoft Vista on an old computer....Posted on July 29, 2008 9:56 AM • 0 Comments •
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Profile
Jonah Lehrer is an editor at large for Seed Magazine. His first book is Proust Was A Neuroscientist. Buy it here.
Recent Posts
- Expensive Wine
- Nature, Nurture and Switched Babies
- The Myth of the Undecided Voter
- James and Measurement
- Unhappiness and Advertising
- Free Will and Ethics
- The Aging Brain
- Fear of Death and Politics
- Proust in Paperback
- The Limits of fMRI
Archives
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- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
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- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
Blogs I've Recently Enjoyed
Chatter:
Summer Food
Here are three food-related items I've been enjoying lately: 1) Fennel Pollen: Like all great spices, the flavor of wild fennel pollen eludes adjectives. It's like a fennel seed, only much more so. I sprinkle it on everything from roasted...Posted on June 25, 2008 1:59 PM • 2 Comments •
Your Brain is a Messy Desk
Or so I say on the Bryant Park Project. We talk about tip-of-the-tongue moments, metacognition and why seeing a picture of a motorcycle will make you think about biopsies....Posted on June 4, 2008 8:56 AM • 0 Comments •
Last Night
I just wanted to thank everyone who came out to Water Taxi Beach last night to hear me, Dan Ariely and the Radio Lab team talk about the irrational brain. I had a great time. I hope you did, too....Posted on May 30, 2008 2:17 PM • 4 Comments •
Pasadena
In case you find yourself in Pasadena, CA tomorrow evening, and want to hear me prattle on about art, science, veal stock and Stravinsky, I'll be speaking at the Art Center College of Design at 7:30....Posted on May 21, 2008 10:48 AM • 6 Comments •
Interviews
First, the Hotel St. George Press, a really cool literary publishing group in Brooklyn (where else?) was kind enough to ask me a few questions: Heather McCalden: Would you mind relaying a bit about your experiences in the lab, the...Posted on April 29, 2008 5:20 PM • 0 Comments •
Foraging
I'm no forager. Once, I took a foraging class in Brooklyn's Prospect Park and managed to find varieties of poisonous mushrooms that even the instructor had never encountered before. (They looked like porcini mushrooms to me.) Nevertheless, I've gotten very...Posted on April 25, 2008 4:51 PM • 9 Comments •
Elevators
It sounds like one of those 1950's psychological experiments that scientific ethics boards no longer allow: Nicholas White was trapped in an elevator in New York City's McGraw-Hill building for forty-one hours. Just thinking about such an ordeal gives me...Posted on April 24, 2008 2:38 PM • 3 Comments •
CSPAN
One of the odd things about blogs, at least for me, is that they encourage a really informal and oddly intimate relationship between the writer and reader. I feel like I really know my favorite bloggers, in a way that...Posted on April 17, 2008 10:49 AM • 5 Comments •
Virginia Book Festival
If you happen to be in the Charlottesville area, I'll be at the Virginia Book Festival tomorrow afternoon, on a panel entitled: "The Creative Mind: How Artists and Writers Invent the World."...Posted on March 27, 2008 10:20 AM • 3 Comments •
Me in Little Rock
If I've got any readers in the Little Rock area, you might be interested in a little talk I'm giving tomorrow evening at the Clinton School of Public Service. The title of the talk is "Kanye West Was A Neuroscientist,"...Posted on March 17, 2008 4:26 PM • 5 Comments •
Kottke
Loyal readers know that I'm a big fan of Jason Kottke. His blog, aptly summarized as "liberal arts 2.0," is a consistent source of the best and smartest links from around the web. So I was really flattered to get...Posted on February 22, 2008 3:00 PM • 1 Comments •
Radio Lab
To call "Radio Lab" a science radio show is like calling "This American Life" a radio show about, well, what the hell is "This American Life" about? (Quirky themes? Good stories? Bourgeois dilemmas?) The point is that the best radio...Posted on February 14, 2008 10:41 AM • 2 Comments •
The View From Your Window
That is, if your window happens to be a cockpit over Maui. I thank the reader who sent this photo in. Not only does the tropical sunset brighten another gloomy New England day, but it reminds us that even wind...Posted on February 5, 2008 2:47 PM • 0 Comments •
Salt
From a very interesting interview with Anthony Bourdain: AVC: Do you ever feel like your sense of taste or smell was diminished by your drug use? Bourdain: Who knows? I think, technically, male palates start to decline very early anyway,...Posted on January 9, 2008 3:40 PM • 3 Comments •
The Wire
I agree with Jeffrey Goldberg: the first episode of The Wire's final season was disappointing. I was enjoying myself just fine for the first 20 minutes or so, becoming reacquainted with some of my favorite drug dealers--the intensely lovable psycho-killer...Posted on January 8, 2008 10:49 AM • 4 Comments •
Book News
One of my resolutions for the new year was spending less time googling myself. (Such are the vanities of an insecure writer.) So far, I'm off to a bad start. I apologize for the self-promotion, but there have recently been...Posted on January 3, 2008 10:37 AM • 7 Comments •
My Favorite Songs of the Year
I'm certainly no music critic, but since it's the season of top 10 lists, I thought I'd share my favorite songs of the year, even if my list is bound to typecast me as yet another overeducated twentysomething with a...Posted on December 28, 2007 10:15 AM • 6 Comments •
Steve Martin on Christmas Wishes
Is altruism really innate? PS. Martin's new memoir is really great....Posted on December 26, 2007 9:31 AM • 0 Comments •
Wrapping Presents
I hope everyone had a lovely and merry Christmas. I've got a post-Christmas question: What cognitive skills are required for present-wrapping? Spatial logic? An intuitive sense of geometry? A belief in neatness? All of the above? I only ask because...Posted on December 26, 2007 9:15 AM • 7 Comments •
Who is the Dorkiest?
So I was out to dinner recently with some friends and the conversation eventually degenerated into a dork competition. The rules of the game are simple (and extremely dorky). Each person confesses the single dorkiest thing about them. The winner...Posted on December 8, 2007 8:45 AM • 25 Comments •
More Book News
Don't worry, the period of shameless self-promotion is almost over. But Proust Was A Neuroscientist has been in the news lately. The San Francisco Chronicle had a very kind review: Interpreters of Woolf and Proust are legion, but Lehrer is...Posted on November 30, 2007 9:29 AM • 7 Comments •
Notable Science Books
So the Times didn't think much of science books this year. Personally, I think the three big omissions from the "Notable" list are Musicophilia, Isaacson's Einstein and The Stuff of Thought. What other science books did you think were notable...Posted on November 28, 2007 11:21 AM • 4 Comments •
Poem of the Day
And it comes with recipes, too! Here's Billy Collins: As soon as the elderly waiter placed before me the fish I had ordered, it began to stare up at me with its one flat, iridescent eye. I feel sorry for...Posted on November 26, 2007 9:27 AM • 4 Comments •
Studio 360
One of my favorite parts of this whole book publication process has been getting to meet the people behind the voices on NPR. I spend so much time tuned to my local public radio station that I feel this intimate...Posted on November 24, 2007 11:51 AM • 2 Comments •
I'm Not There
I've been trying really hard not to get excited about I'm Not There, in case it turned out to be a self-indulgent disaster. But early reviews suggest that it's actually rather compelling. That's great news, because I already love the...Posted on November 21, 2007 10:20 AM • 6 Comments •
The Tour
It's nice to be back home. I had a really wonderful time on the book tour, but it's nice to return to my boring routine. I'd like to thank everyone who came out to hear me talk. To be honest,...Posted on November 15, 2007 4:29 PM • 8 Comments •
Blushing
Here's an embarassing story. I'm browsing a bookstore in San Francisco, killing a little time before a radio interview, and I can't help but wander over to the table with Proust Was A Neuroscientist on it. I'm actually paging through...Posted on November 8, 2007 3:59 PM • 13 Comments •
Press
More housekeeping/self-promotion here, but there was plenty of book news this weekend. First, the NY Times ran a nice review of my book written by D.T. Max. (If you haven't read The Family That Couldn't Sleep, you're really missing out...Posted on November 5, 2007 10:12 AM • 0 Comments •
Book Tour
For those who might be interested, I thought I'd post my book tour dates, since the tour officially kicks off today. Hope to see you there! November 1, 7 PM, Gibson's Bookstore, Concord, NH November 7, 7 PM, Barnes &...Posted on November 1, 2007 10:55 AM • 7 Comments •
Roasting in Salt
It really is one of the great culinary techniques, and yet it's almost never used. I'm talking about salt roasting, and Russ Parsons has put together a lovely introduction to the subject. Basically, you bury a piece of protein in...Posted on October 31, 2007 9:52 AM • 1 Comments •
Los Angeles Times
A note to readers: For the next few weeks, this blog is going on a book tour. So if you're averse to self-promotion and blatant shows of immodesty (I promise to also link to the negative reviews!), or just aren't...Posted on October 29, 2007 10:45 AM • 1 Comments •
Proust in Wired
My book got a very nice little spread in the new Wired. There's a picture of me at an uncomfortable zoom and a short Q&A: Q: Do you really think that we'll find answers to science's Big Questions in the...Posted on October 22, 2007 9:43 AM • 4 Comments •
Crime and Vending Machines
Sometimes, the amygdala makes us do stupid things....Posted on October 20, 2007 5:40 PM • 0 Comments •
Two Recommendations
1) Away, by Amy Bloom. The prose is perfect. It's the best written new novel you'll read this year, and that's saying something, since Ian McEwan also came out with a new novel. Another interesting thing about the book is...Posted on September 24, 2007 9:27 AM • 4 Comments •
