The author is a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School, who, in 1996, suffered a stroke in the left side of her brain when a blood vessel burst. After 8 years therapy she completely recovered. The value of the experience to her has been to see how the "endless chattering" of the left brain (where of course language processing resides), rather swamps the more meaningful right brain value system, so she can now consciously cultivate her mind to use both halves of her brain equally.

Though mainly text, there are a considerable number of simple, but informative, drawings showing the relevant areas of the brain, and which areas were affected.

The experience on the morning of the stroke is gone through in detail, and it is very interesting. Although there is no reason to doubt her scientific credentials, some individuals might consider her a bit too "woo-woo". She states that she discovered that she is a spirit at one with the Universe, a phrase she uses not only once but several times; I am wondering if that phrase has any real meaning, but on the other hand I am willing to accept that her judgement on the matter is correct. It seems that the experience was actually a kind of nirvana for her, having only a right brain was in many ways a good place to be. I am sure her own attitude would be that the right brain simply knows the truth, and no amount of obsessive, wordy, questioning from the left brain will undermine that. Clearly she regards the left brain as a source of unnecessary negativity (though she states the vast majority of the left brain is positive and working hard toward her welfare); it gets into loops of continuous analysis and enquiry and can push things too far, sometimes actively undermining self-belief and optimism.

Taylor gives some detail of her road to recovery, making valuable points about the care of stroke victims; she found that many of the medics treated her as stupid, whereas in fact she was merely wounded in the brain. She convincingly emphasises that the road to recovery for a stroke victim relies on the patience, understanding and genuine care of the therapists.

Of great interest to me was her renewal of the perception of colour. She says that, after the stroke, she did not know what colour was, implying that she could not actually see it. But when her therapist, who had given her an infants game of sorting objects, told her to use colour as a cue, only then was she actually able to see colour. This does not make sense to me, for surely she must have been perceiving the colours to have gone ahead and used them.