An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist, a Memoir

An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist, a Memoir by Richard Dawkins
Ecco, 2013, 304 pages
Reviewed by: Sharon McCaslin

Famous as a proselytizing atheist, Dawkins turns his clever, witty, and humane intellect on his own development. This memoir is intended to cover the first half of his life – without doubt the most interesting half. Dawkins is a product of the British system, having grown up in Africa with parents involved in the service of Empire. His experiences in the elite boys’ schools of the twentieth century make it clear why this system probably ought not to survive. Nevertheless, the book makes it clear where this famous scientist and writer came from and demonstrates the thoughtful progress of his ideas over time.

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The Answer to the Riddle is Me: a Memoir of Amnesia

The Answer to the Riddle is Me: a Memoir of Amnesia by David Stuart MacLean

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014, 304 pages

Reviewed by: Sharon McCaslin

Suddenly awakening on a railway platform in India, the author has no idea who he is or where he came from or what he is doing. Told in very disjointed fashion, following the drug induced hallucinations and humiliations, this book recounts his desperate and confusing steps on the long road to determining who he is and what happened. Along the way we learn that the standard drug routinely given as prevention from malaria causes some psychological impairment in about 25% of those taking it and severe psychosis in a few. Apparently, much of the PTSD of soldiers returning from modern war zones is attributable to this drug, which is given to soldiers routinely and has a lasting effect of a decade or more. The completely unconscionable usage in Guantanamo was disturbing. Just what makes me into “me”? How many memories are necessary for functioning as me? And which ones? And why? Very thought provoking and unsettling in many ways.

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