Proust Was a Neuroscientist

Is science the only path to knowledge?

In this sparkling and provocative book, Jonah Lehrer explains that when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first. Taking a group of celebrated writers, painters and composers, Lehrer shows us how artists have discovered truths about the human mind - real, tangible truths - that science is only now rediscovering. We learn, for example, how Proust first revealed the fallibility of memory; how George Eliot understood the brain''s malleability; how the French chef Escoffier intuited umami (the fifth taste)

how Cézanne worked out the subtleties of vision; and how Virginia Woolf pierced the mysteries of consciousness. It''s a riveting tale of art trumping science again and again.