My Stroke of Insight (Penguin Books Ltd. 2009)

By Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD

Imagine being a well-accomplished, 37-year old sharp professional of the Harvard pedigree at the prime of your career—healthy as a whistle and with a bright future—only to wake up one morning to discover you’re having a stroke. Your smart brain fails you. Your world, as you know it, begins to fall apart.

That’s the state Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist found herself on December 10, 1996. My Stroke of Insight is Taylor’s very captivating account of her lengthy road to recovery from a clinical and personal perspective. "Every brain has a story and this is mine," Taylors starts in her book.

This book falls into four parts: The opening part introduces the reader to who Taylor was before she had her stroke.  In this following section, she recounts the events of the morning she had her stroke. Taylor provides a step-by-step account of the deterioration of her cognitive abilities, as seen through the eyes of a brain scientist, to the point of her so-called rescue moment. In the third section, Taylor shares her eight-year journey to full recovery followed by a fourth section dedicated to the lessons the author learned about the brain after her own experience of having and recovering from a stroke.

For a 200-page book, it is a quick and easy read—perfect to breeze through during a layover or in a couple of hours during some downtime. Taylor recalls her experience with such great detail, much to the fascination of those with an insatiatious curiosity about how the human mind works and how we relate to one another. For those who have been impacted by a stroke, the author’s inspiring story proves to be most helpful with a powerful message of hope as well as an entire section devoted to recommendations for recovery at the end.