Penelope A. Lewis
Author of The Secret World of Sleep: The Surprising Science of the Mind at Rest
About the Author
Penelope A. Lewis is a neuroscientist at the University of Manchester, where she runs the Sleep and Memory Lab. She has written for a number of popular-science publications, including New Scientist, Scientific American, and BBC Focus and was interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air. She's received funding show more from top institutes, including the Wellcome Trust, Biotechnology and Biosciences Research Council, Medical Research Council, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and Unilever. She lives in Manchester, United Kingdom. show less
Works by Penelope A. Lewis
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Other names
- Lewis, Penny
- Gender
- female
Members
Reviews
It is unclear who is the intended audience for this book. It's a short read that at first glance appears to be addressed to the common reader, yet it doesn't provide the type of information that would be sought after at the popular level. Neither is it an academic work. Lewis reworks a collection of research material, presumably to make it more accessible to readers, a device that doesn't work in this case. There are some interesting facts, but nothing much that is really useful to the show more ordinary person in search of knowledge. It is likely that the reader who picks up this book will have sleep problems and hope to find solutions. They will be disappointed.
If this is the kind of writing you are looking for - or if you want to be bored to sleep - you will probably like this book. show less
"When neurons want to communicate one-on-one, they use something called a synapse, a place where the membranes of two different cells come very close together. The receiving side of the synapse is typically loaded with specialist receptors that can bind molecules that float across the synaptic cleft, while the transmitting side is loaded with little vesicles, or bubbles of membranes that encapsulate special chemicals (called neurotransmitters) that can bind to these receptors. When an electric impulse arrives at the transmitting side of the synapse, it triggers feverish activity in these vesicles - they bind to the cell membrane and release their contents into the fluid-filled void that is the synaptic cleft."
If this is the kind of writing you are looking for - or if you want to be bored to sleep - you will probably like this book. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.I was looking forward to reading this book but found it to be a frustrating and ultimately disappointing read. I just couldn’t figure out author Stephanie Lewis’ purpose in writing it. Too technical for a lay audience and not technical enough for a scholarly work, it reads like an introductory textbook on cognitive science---complete with chapter summaries---for students. And while there are a few interesting facts to be found, you have to slog through an awful lot of jargon-laden prose; show more needless charts, graphs and diagrams; and more detail than you would ever want or need to know about laboratory experiments and brain topography to get there. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.
The author, Penelope Lewis, is the director of the Sleep and Memory Laboratory at the University of Manchester, and here gives a fascinating insight into how our brains continue working while we get some well-deserved rest. I as a former nurse found the anatomy and neurophysiology of the brain very interesting, but to someone without a science or medical background this could become boring, even though she explains the facts in a way that can be fairly easily understood and tries to support show more the terminology with common real-life analogies. We learn how sleep deprivation can be compared to the effects of alcohol on the brain, and how it affects creativity, lateral thinking, mood and learning. My problem with this book is that the author focuses heavily (almost to the exclusion of everything else) on the consolidation of memories during sleep (not surprisingly, given her job title), and even then some of the results of studies conducted by sleep scientists appear to contradict other results in the same field. As someone who has struggled with sleep issues for more than a decade, I was hoping that there might be some answers in here to explain what's going on in my head at night (or during the day, when I'm desperate for a nap). Only the very last chapter touches on things people with sleep problems could try to achieve a better night's rest, from avoidance of certain foods and caffeine in the evenings or the ambience of the bedroom, to things like timed air fresheners, blue light sources or wearing orange-tinted goggles for a few hours before going to sleep; but then it's probably fair to say that most of the serious insomniacs among us will have tried a good deal of them already, so there's nothing new to be learned in this respect. For a book entitled The Secret World of Sleep: The Surprising Science of the Mind at Rest I was expecting something a little bit more all-encompassing, including a more thorough exploration of sleep disorders; this isn't the author's fault, but – I presume – the publisher's by giving a very specific book a more generic (and hence misleading) title.
(This review was originally written as part of Amazon's Vine programme.) show less
(This review was originally written as part of Amazon's Vine programme.) show less
Way too much clinical/technical jargon to make this book interesting for the general reader. Author Lewis attempts several times to relate interesting anecdotes but consistently bogs them down with too much neuroscience lingo. It was like trying to read a school text. As a matter of fact, there are summaries at the end of each chapter telling you what you should have learned. I was trying to find test answers at the back of the book but I kept falling asleep. So in summary, I guess I did show more learn something about sleep after all. show less
This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.Lists
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 2
- Members
- 109
- Popularity
- #178,010
- Rating
- 3.0
- Reviews
- 14
- ISBNs
- 4
