Published in 2013
282 pages
Maria Konnikova is a contributing writing for The New Yorker online and her writing has appeared online and in print in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Slate, The Paris Review, The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, Salon, The Boston Globe, WIRED, The Observer, Scientific American MIND, The Smithsonian, and Scientific American, among numerous other publications. She graduated from Harvard University and received her Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University.
What is this book about?
No fictional character is more renowned for his powers of thought and observation than Sherlock Holmes. But is his extraordinary intellect merely a gift of fiction, or can we learn to cultivate these abilities ourselves, to improve our lives at work and at home?
We can, says psychologist and journalist Maria Konnikova, and in Mastermind she shows us how. Beginning with the “brain attic”–Holmes’s metaphor for how we store information and organize knowledge–Konnikova unpacks the mental strategies that lead to clearer thinking and deeper insights. Drawing on twenty-first-century neuroscience and psychology, Mastermind explores Holmes’s unique methods of ever-present mindfulness, astute observation, and logical deduction.
In doing so, it shows how each of us, with some self-awareness and a little practice, can employ these same methods to sharpen our perceptions, solve difficult problems, and enhance our creative powers. For Holmes aficionados and casual readers alike, Konnikova reveals how the world’s most keen-eyed detective can serve as an unparalleled guide to upgrading the mind.
