from Lauren Wiser

Left Bank Books presents journalist and author Malcolm Gay, who will sign and discuss his book, The Brain Electric: The Dramatic High-Tech Race to Merge Minds and Machines (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 2015), on Thursday, November 19, 7pm, at Left Bank Books (399 N. Euclid).

In the Brain Electric, Malcom Gay tells the extraordinary story of the race to build the first commercially workable brain-machine interface. Gay follows a group of scientists as they race to integrate computers directly to the brain. With money and prestige on the line, many of these researches must rely on an unlikely partner—the unspeakably vulnerable population of patient-volunteers. Often confined to wheelchairs, these volunteers are true explorers, and Gay movingly details their devastating but ultimately hopeful journeys as they put their bodies on the line in the hope of helping future patients, with little expectation of seeing any
benefit themselves.

Of The Brain Electric, Fergus M. Bordewich, author of America’s Great Debate, says, “Malcolm Gay has brilliantly opened the door to a new and startling world of engineering that will eventually transform many thousands of lives for the better…This is a masterpiece of reporting, and science writing at its best.” A review from Library Journal claims, “The human side moves the narrative forward and will engage not just science readers but those who love inspiring people.”

Malcolm Gay is an arts reporter for The Boston Globe. He has written frequently for The New York Times, and his writings and essays have also appeared in The Atlantic and Time.com, as well as several other publications. Named an Alicia Patterson Fellow in 2013, Gay has won numerous journalism awards. The Brain Electric is his first book.