In a fascinating exploration of the brain, a noted neurologist looks at how our five senses allow us both to experience the real world accurately and mislead us, sometimes with disastrous consequences.
In The Man Who Tasted Words, Guy Leschziner leads readers through the five senses and how, through them, our brain understands or misunderstands the world around us.

Vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch are what we rely on to perceive the reality of our world, the conduits that bring us the scent of a freshly brewed cup of coffee or the notes of a favorite song suddenly playing on the radio. But are they really that reliable? The Man Who Tasted Words shows that what we perceive to be absolute truths of the world around us is actually a complex reconstruction by the machinations of our minds and nervous systems. The translation into experiences with conscious meaning—the pattern of light and dark on the retina that is transformed into the face of a loved one, for instance—is a process invisible and undetected by ourselves.

Guy Leschziner explores how our nervous systems define our worlds and how we can be victims of a falsehood perpetrated by our own brain. Leschziner introduces readers to extraordinary individuals whose senses have been altered in some way, and how that disruption has played havoc not only with their view of the world, but their relationships. Their stories are extreme cases, but they also teach us how our lives are ultimately defined by the complexities of our nervous systems and how we are sometimes betrayed by our own brains.