How to Use a Fork

‘Deserves to join Oliver Sacks and Henry Marsh on the list of top popular neuroscience writers’ Melanie Reid, The Times
‘Beautifully observed, beautifully written . . .’ Rory Stewart
‘Intensely moving and awe-inspiring’ Marina Hyde
‘A tribute to the spirit of people faced with calamity’ Literary Review

Every ninety seconds someone is admitted to hospital in the UK with a brain injury. From the woman who thought her arm was a baby, to the man who saw mannequins peering at him through the dark, these are the remarkable stories of resilience and recovery behind the statistics.

As a medical student, Orlando Swayne was taught that a broken brain never mends. But as a junior doctor, he began to meet patients for whom this was clearly not the case: people learning to speak again to the people they love, regaining lost mobility, even using a fork. Delving into the emerging neuroscience of brain reorganisation, he discovered the extraordinary ways that the brain can adapt after injury, and that shattered lives can be rebuilt.

Irresistible to anyone curious about the mysteries of the brain, How to Use a Fork is a moving and profound journey to the outer reaches of human experience that asks the question: what makes us who we are?