Proust and the Squid by cog­ni­tive neu­ro­sci­en­tist Maryanne Wolf is an inspir­ing cel­e­bra­tion of the sci­ence of read­ing. In evo­lu­tion­ary terms, read­ing is a recent­ly acquired cul­tur­al inven­tion that uses exist­ing brain struc­tures for a rad­i­cal­ly new skill. Unlike vision or speech, there is no direct genet­ic pro­gramme pass­ing read­ing on to future gen­er­a­tions. It is an unnat­ur­al process that has to be learnt by each indi­vid­ual.

Wolf’s fas­ci­nat­ing book shows how evo­lu­tion­ary his­to­ry and cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science are cast­ing new light on “the com­plex beau­ty of the read­ing process”. In par­tic­u­lar, she high­lights the brain’s aston­ish­ing plas­tic­i­ty, its “pro­tean capac­i­ty” to forge new links and reor­gan­ise itself to learn new skills: we are all born with the “capac­i­ty to change what is giv­en to us by nature … We are, it would seem from the start, genet­i­cal­ly poised for break­throughs”.

You can read my review of Proust and the Squid for the Guardian here.

In the same issue I also review Paul Ther­oux’s won­der­ful gonzo trav­el­ogue The Great Rail­way Bazaar, just re-issued by Pen­guin, and The Archimedes Codex: Reveal­ing the Blue­print of Mod­ern Sci­ence, by Reviel Netz and William Noel, the com­pelling account of how schol­ars and sci­en­tists have revealed the con­tents of the old­est sur­viv­ing Greek man­u­script of Archimedes. Read those here.

While you’re over at the Guardian Review, Steven Poole’s piece on Andrew Crumey’s Sput­nik Cale­do­nia is also well worth read­ing. Accord­ing to Poole:

“Sci­ence fic­tion makes you think of space­ships, mag­i­cal tech­nol­o­gy, vision­ary futur­ism. Yet ‘sci­ence fic­tion’ might also be a good name for a kind of fic­tion that con­tains no robots or galac­tic bat­tles but sim­ply engages with sci­ence on a deep­er and more author­i­ta­tive lev­el than your aver­age nov­el­ist who bor­rows a vague under­stand­ing of quan­tum mechan­ics as a lit­tle moon­dust to sprin­kle over the sto­ry.”

One of the char­ac­ters in the nov­el com­ments: “Go to any of our uni­ver­si­ties and you will find physi­cists who think they have no need of Shel­ley, or nov­el­ists who sup­pose they can live with­out New­ton.” As Poole says, “against this state of affairs, Sput­nik Cale­do­nia stands, in all its curi­ous ambi­gu­i­ty, as a kind of man­i­festo.” It’s cer­tain­ly going on my wish list.