A Brilliant Mind: Proven Ways to Increase Your Brainpower

"Everyday, choose one word, one you're not sure you know, and look it up in the dictionary." ~ Marilyn vos Savant Frank Minirth has written a very useful book but it should be more appropriately titled: A Brilliant Vocabulary: Proven Ways to Increase Your Word Power. This book is mostly made up of word lists with short definitions. At this point you may be asking whether it would just be better to buy a dictionary and read it over a year's time. I'd suggest doing that anyway and I did it once. However, this book has words in lists of various categories like art, music, physics, chemistry and biology. Frank Minirth believes you can develop a photographic memory. But will this book do that for you? I don't think simply memorizing words or Bible verses (there is a chapter filled with Bible verses) will do that for you. This book does however teach you how to remember words through memory techniques. One of the things I love to do while reading is to write down unfamiliar words, which I then look up at dictionary dot com. This has been very helpful as I branch out into new territories where understanding a word becomes essential to understanding new concepts and ideas. This book will help you in a similar way although it presents the words without using them in sentences. For that you may want to look up specific words online to see how they are used and in what context. I wouldn't recommend that you read this book all at once. That would be overwhelming. Perhaps read the introduction to each chapter and then go back to the lists as you have time to learn new words. One of the words I learned was "philomuse - lover of poetry." Since mental exercises help to develop brain cells and connections you may also want to use this book to prevent age-related cognitive decline. At the end of the book there is a casual discussion about the benefits of certain drugs that affect memory as we age. So if you love reading dictionaries this book will be wildly enjoyable for you. I'd suggest reading just a few word lists a day to increase your vocabulary over the next year. ~The Rebecca Review

This a a great book to keep in your pocket, makes those waiting minutes pass quickly. You never get tired of reading it.

Just as our bodies need physical exercise to stay in top form, our brains must be exercised as well. "A Brilliant Mind" is a worthwhile book to purchase or borrow from the library. Read it daily to keep the mind focused; challenge yourself to learn a new & different way of doing something you already do. We do so many things by rote- mix it up to help your brain stretch. Try a recitation. Do a puzzle. For Baby Boomers out there, learn poetry, expand on something you learned in school. I keep this in my car & find plenty of downtime to use the book. I recommend.