“Struck by Genius: How a Brain Injury Made Me a Mathematical Marvel” by Jason Padgett
I first saw Jason Padgett’s Struck by Genius: How a Brain Injury Made Me a Mathematical Marvel reviewed in Entertainment Weekly. The premise fascinated me. In his twenties, Padgett was a muscle-built party boy. One night he got beat up outside a bar, and after that is a different person, interested in math, and able to see mathematical patterns in everyday sights like water in the sink, or dew on leaves. As he fought to manage the post-traumatic stress disorder and emotional repercussions from his brain injury, he comes to embrace his new love of and interest in math, and goes on to have a very different life than anyone expected and becomes the first documented case of acquired savant syndrome with mathematical synesthesia
Padgett narrated the book to the co-author, Maureen Ann Seaberg. It felt sometimes as if the book needed a tighter editor for some of Padgett’s anecdotes. But the story was so compelling to me, as was the insight into brain and cognitive science, that these far outweighed my quibbles with style.
September 11th, 2014 at 4:33 am
woah this sounds so interesting.