Search results are updated once every 4 hours and do not always reflect in-store availability. If the book you are looking for is not in stock, we are always happy to order it for you!

Zach Schonbrun, The Performance Cortex: How Neuroscience is Redefining Athletic Genius

 
When: Tuesday, May 1, 7:00pm
Where: The Odyssey Bookshop
 
Athletic genius explained. A groundbreaking new perspective on the science of elite sporting performance.
 
Why couldn't Michael Jordan, master athlete that he was, hit a baseball? Why can't modern robotics come close to replicating the dexterity of a five-year-old? Why do good quarterbacks always seem to know where their receivers are?
 
In this deeply researched book, Sports and Business reporter Zach Schonbrun explores what actually drives human movement and its spectacular potential. The groundbreaking work of two neuroscientists in Major League Baseball is only the beginning. Schonbrun traces the fascinating history of motor research and details how new investigations in the brain are helping explain the extraordinary skills of talented performers like Stephen Curry, Tom Brady, Serena Williams, and Lionel Messi; as well as musical virtuosos, dancers, rock climbers, race-car drivers, and more.
 
Whether it is timing a 95-mph fastball or reaching for a coffee mug, movement requires extraordinary computation that many take for granted--until now. The Performance Cortex ushers in a new way of thinking about the athletic gifts we strain to see in our cavernous arenas. It's not about the million-dollar arm anymore. It's about the million-dollar brain.
 
Zach Schonbrun has been a contributing writer for The New York Times since 2011, covering primarily sports and business. Six of his articles have appeared on the newspaper's front page. He graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in economics in 2009 and earned a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in 2011. His work has also appeared in ESPN magazine, Newsday, The Washington Post, Yahoo! Sports, VICE, and SB Nation Longform. In January 2015, he published a ten-thousand-word Amazon Kindle Single, One Great Shoe, which was selected as one of the best Kindle Singles of the year. He currently lives in New York City with his wife.
 
Event date: 
Tuesday, May 1, 2018 - 7:00pm
Event address: 
Odyssey Bookshop
9 College st.
South Hadley, MA 01075