SLEIGHTS OF MIND

Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde, with Sandra Blakeslee. Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals About Our Brains. Profile Books, 2011.

A word of warning, if you love the wonder of magic shows and do not want on any account to know how magic tricks (even, one suspects, old and superseded ones) work, then do not read this book. If on the other hand you want to know what magic tricks can tell us about how we perceive the world, and what they illustrated about the human perceptual processes, then this book is for you.

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ALL IN THE MIND?

Antonio Damasio. Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain. William Heineman, 2010.

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Oliver Sacks. In the Mind's Eye. Picador, 2010.

Damasio's book is an important and impressive study of the rise of consciousness, and while much of it is of a more technical nature than I am competent to comment on, I want to draw attention to the main theme, consciousness as a product of the brain's interaction with the body.

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SECRETS AND ILLUSIONS

      

David V Barrett. The Atlas of Secret Societies: The Truth Behind the Templars, Freemasons and Other Secretive Organisations. Godsfield, 2008

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Monte Cook. The Skeptics Guide to Conspiracies. Adams Media, 2009

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Richard L Gregory. Seeing Through Illusions. Oxford University Press, 2009

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