Brains!  Brains!  (I promise this is not a zombie entry)

The Brain the Changes Itself
Norman Doidge
Penguin

Depending on how old you are, you might remember your biology teacher telling you that once you get through early childhood, your brain is pretty done changing and that it is very hard to teach the old dog new tricks.  Well, researchh in the 20th century has disproven this theory and now neuroplasticity, the term for the brain's ability to re-map itself, is its own field of study.

The Brain that Changes Itself is a very consumable read in which Doidge, a researcher and psychiatrist, makes some enthusiastic claims about the capabilities of the human brain.   He describes how stroke victims have managed to remap their brains to perform functions that had formerly been controlled by now "dead" sections of their brains.  He chronicles how researchers have used simple devices to eliminate the pains (and itching!) in phantom limbs.  And most importantly, he tells compelling stories about real people that makes hard-core science into a can't-put-it-down page-turner.  Three point five neruoplasticity tongue twisters out of five.