‘I find myself at a loss for how to describe this remarkable work. Just as Karl has, through his laboratory, reimagined, and literally redefined how we view the human brain, he has reimagined and redefined what literary non-fiction can be, with great elegance. For all of us who write about science for the public, this will be a tough act to follow. It’s poetic, mind-stretching, and through it all, deeply human’

‘Revelatory … it recalls the case histories of Oliver Sacks, at times the sweep of Yuval Harari’s Sapiens. He writes with an evident love of words – but also, with a lucid line of scientific enquiry’

‘There are some books that you read and forget. There are others that you read and think about occasionally. Then there are rare gems like Connections that you read, read again and find that the way you think has been irreversibly changed. Incredibly powerful’

‘Karl Deisseroth is a master storyteller. Armed with an abundance of compassion and curiosity, he takes us on a spellbinding tour of the mysteries of the human mind through a series of fascinating case studies. His graceful prose weaves a tapestry of complex ideas into memorable stories, each illuminated by cutting-edge science. A delight from the opening paragraph to the stunning conclusion, this book is an invitation to reverence for the complexity of the human brain and its relationship to the mind: a ticket to a state of wonder at the essence of our selves’

‘Deisseroth is a talented writer … It is in his encounters with distressed patients that his talent for marrying science and the imagination becomes most apparent and that his writing comes truly alive. Connections warrants comparison with books such as Do No Harm by Henry Marsh and Brainstorm by Suzanne Sullivan . . . Deisseroth achieves the difficult feat of moving and enlightening the reader at the same time … [this is] a book that is beautiful to read and packed with cutting edge science’

‘This hybrid memoir, by an emergency-room psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry and bioengineering, probes the evolutionary origins of human emotions’

‘Essential…tinged with a profound humility built over years of interactions with patients… this is big’

‘Deisseroth is a genuine pioneer, whose prize-winning research is re-defining our understanding of the brain… a stunning work from a relatively young man set on revealing the threads connecting our most pressing personal concerns with our timeless biological inheritance… Deisseroth has the imagination and literary gift to make it speak to all of us’

‘Karl Deisseroth’s imaginative narrative flows effortlessly… There is a first love of reading and writing and hints of a literary imagination that draws on James Joyce and Toni Morrison… Deisseroth endeavors to find an emotive language for the psychiatric patients he meets. He accomplishes this by weaving together… psychiatric knowledge, technology, and imagination. These together free him to write poetically… His narratives are always sensitive… an admixture of fact and fiction, reality and imagination, damage and desire’

‘[Deisseroth’s] scintillating and moving analysis of the human brain and emotions, based on observations of his patients, proves he is not exaggerating. It is also a great read’