The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind - Marvin Minsky

Advantages: Interesting and easy to read
Disadvantages: You may get the terms muddled

...You might recognise the man on the front of this book: Professor Lord Robert Winston is well-known as the presenter of BBC programmes such as Child of Our Time, Making Babies, Human Instinct and, the series which this book accompanies, The Human Mind. You may think it's a strange choice for a book on the brain to be written by a man whose area of expertise is fertility (he is professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial College, University of London) and obstetrics and gynaecology (he is Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at Hammersmith Hospital), but Robert Winston is also Director of NHS Research and Development and a strong voice in the genetic engineering debate, which presumably both entail an interest in neurology. Don't be put off by Winston's credentials: this book doesn't shy away from using technical terms, but... Read review

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Advantages: None.
Disadvantages: Overly descriptive to the point of boredom.

...rather than enjoyment, hoping that indeed the writer will reveal the answers to the questions poised, though she does so in an oblique and weighty manner. I have read many authors, and this is the first time that I have read Kate Atkinson, and I have to admit it was enough to make me careful about parting with Seven Pounds again. The self indulgence of the author did not pay off, and left me feeling that the only words appropriate to the way in which her mind worked whilst writing the book were the words of the title "Emotionally Weird". It was an emotionally weird book, that can only be summed up as "twaddle". ISBN 0-552-99734-X www.booksattransworld.co.uk... Read review

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Advantages: CLASSIC PAGE TURNER
Disadvantages: NOTHING

...the year 802,701 A.D. where the people are only 4ft tall. Disease has been eradicated over the millennia, the higher mammals have died out, in fact, and as man has ceased to strive so has he ceased to care. The human spirit needing to fight no more has instead become indulgent and with it his intelligence has declined. The story of the time machine is a haunted tale and you can see why the ending was changed for the silver screen. It is about the cannibalistic Morlocks living, quite literally, off of the gentle Eloi. It was written in another time and age when PC was unheard of and where the lines between good and evil where as clearly defined as black is from white. Once the morlocks enter the story there is a creeping dread and an inhuman and malign atmosphere that permeates the story from that point onwards. The Cast... Read review

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