Neuroscientist Eric R. Kandel recounts his remarkable career since receiving the Nobel in 2000. He takes readers through his lab’s scientific advances as well as his efforts to promote public understanding of science and to put brain science and art into conversation.

Eric R. Kandel is a University Professor and the Sagol Professor of Brain Science at Columbia University, where he is also codirector of the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, and a senior investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 2000 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his studies of learning and memory. He is the author of In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind (2006), The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present (2012), Reductionism in Art and Brain Science: Bridging the Two Cultures (Columbia, 2016), and The Disordered Mind: What Unusual Brains Tell Us About Ourselves (2018).

In this remarkable recap of his post-prize career, Kandel’s intellect and passion are present on every page. Readers will be awed by the depth and breadth of Kandel’s work.

A short, cheerful memoir from an energetic Nobel laureate.

Joseph E. LeDoux, Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science, New York University, and author of The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains:
Eric Kandel is a scientific giant. As in his other wonderful books, he has a fascinating tale to tell in this one, and does it well. A great story to read.

Howard Gardner, Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education:
In this slim but wide-ranging book, Eric R. Kandel—an escapee from Nazi Austria and a student of history and literature in college—reflects thoughtfully on his recent research as a benchtop neuroscientist, his experiences as a public communicator about brain and cognitive science, and his keen exploration of the arts.

Larry W. Swanson, University Professor, Appleman Professor of Biological Sciences, and Professor of Biological Sciences and Psychology, University of Southern California:
This is an inspiring and unique story of creativity, perseverance, and humanity from the most influential neuroscientist of his generation.

Margaret S. Livingstone, Takeda Professor of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School:
Of course Eric Kandel didn’t stop doing experiments on learning and memory after he got a Nobel Prize; he would have had to become an entirely different person. But what did change, fortunately for the reader, is that he acquired the skill and confidence to convey deep scientific insights about the brain as they relate to a variety of subjects, such as abstract expressionist art, gender dysphoria, poverty, and morality.

V. S. Ramachandran, author of The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human:
This is an amazing book that gives us a peek inside the mind of one of the giants of contemporary neuroscience. While most of us struggle to succeed in a single discipline, Eric R. Kandel has excelled in three: first his discovery of the neural basis of memory—a discovery comparable to DNA; second, as an art historian successfully bridging art and neuroscience; and now, a parallel career, as a science writer of almost unparalleled excellence.