BROKS, Paul. Into the silent land; travels in neuropsychology. Grove Press, 246p. bibliog, c2003. 0-8021-4128-5. $14.00. SA

Not for the faint of heart, Into the Silent Land is a series of essays, musings, meditations and reflections on what it is to be human and to have a brain. Broks fuses his own thoughts on what it feels like to have a "self" with mini anatomy lessons on the brain and its functions. The short essays more from his lecture platform to his family memories, from his conversation with his patients to his conversations with hallucinatory chimera of various types.

Because he reflects of the nature of the self, on questions about the existence of a soul, on the improbability of life after death, Broks is not for every reader. He is, however, a gifted writer with a serious purpose: to pose basic questions and to probe for their answers. He does give suggestions for further reading, but reading Broks alone can be more than enough for long and heavy thought. Patricia Moore, Brookline, MA