'Powerful and gripping...presented with extraordinary lucidity, cogency and panache...To have read [the book] is to have consulted a first draft of the structural plan of the human psyche...a glittering tour de forcé' - Spectator

'Why do memories fade? Why do we lose our tempers? Why do fools fall in love? Pinker's objective in this erudite account is to explore the nature and history of the human mind...He explores computations and evolutions, and then considers how the mind lets us "see, think, feel, interact and pursue higher callings like art, religion and philosophy"' - Sunday Times

'Witty popular science that you enjoy reading for the writing as well as for science...He is a top-rated writer, and deserves the superlatives that are lavished on him' - The New York Times Book Review

'Pinker has a remarkable capacity to explain difficult ideas and he writes with the comic verve of Martin Amis or Woody Allen...How the Mind Works will change the way your mind works' - The Times

 

 
I got this book free for filling in a Penguin questionnaire about science books. I've no idea what it'll be like, but having recently read The Science of Discworld books I was reminded how much I enjoyed reading science and having new ideas to think about. I hope this book manages to at least make me think, and the blurb makes it sound as though it'll make me laugh too; bonus!