One Hundred Poems and the Brain: A Cyclist's Memoir - HB

What a delightful and inspiring read! It’s endlessly fascinating to delve deeply into the internal world of another human, especially someone as thoughtful, curious, and engaging as Miner. He applies his keen intellect to think deeply yet humbly about his everyday experiences, and the result is fresh and enriching. I should preface my comments with the admission that I’m not a connoisseur of poetry, yet I greatly enjoyed the intellectual journey that was “One Hundred Poems and the Brain”. Ever modest, Miner is clear that he is not an expert in the field of memory, and although I do have an academic background myself I found many of his observations to be spot-on and richly conveyed. That is not to say that I agreed with every insight or that his interpretations of the memory literature always meshed with my own, but I found them thought-provoking nonetheless. Miner is also clear that the book is composed of three distinct parts that can stand alone. Of these, to my surprise, I most appreciate Part Two where he lists and discusses each of the poems in his collection. I found myself re-reading a number of his reflections to more fully plumb them, and then looking up some of the poems to read for myself. I was especially enamored with the love poems, including his own, and his eloquent explorations of them in the context of his life. Although memory is the book’s primary focus, with the advice in Part 3 for maintaining healthy memories as we age being particularly valuable, the secondary theme of love was for me deeply captivating and it may be these insights that will stay with me the longest.