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Embracing The Wide Sky: The Enormous Potential of Your Mind
Daniel Tammet

Embracing The Wide Sky: The Enormous Potential of Your Mind

Owner of “the most remarkable mind on the planet,” (according to Entertainment Weekly) Daniel Tammet captivated readers and won worldwide critical acclaim with the 2006 Sunday Times bestselling memoir, Born On A Blue Day, and its vivid depiction of a life with autistic savant syndrome. In his fascinating new book, he writes with characteristic clarity and personal awareness as he sheds light on the mysteries of savants’ incredible mental abilities, and our own.

Tammet explains that the differences between savant and non-savant minds have been exaggerated; his astonishing capacities in memory, math and language are neither due to a cerebral supercomputer nor any genetic quirk, but are rather the results of a highly rich and complex associative form of thinking and imagination. Autistic thought, he argues, is an extreme variation of a kind that we all do, from daydreaming to the use of puns and metaphors.


Embracing the Wide Sky combines meticulous scientific research with Tammet’s detailed descriptions of how his mind works to demonstrate the immense potential within us all. He explains how our natural intuitions can help us to learn a foreign language, why his memories are like symphonies, and what numbers and giraffes have in common. We also discover why there is more to intelligence than IQ, how optical illusions fool our brains, and why too much information can make you dumb.

Many readers will be particularly intrigued by Tammet’s original ideas concerning the genesis of genius and exceptional creativity. He illustrates his arguments with examples as diverse as the private languages of twins, the compositions of poets with autism, and the breakthroughs, and breakdowns, of some of history’s greatest minds.

Embracing the Wide Sky is a unique and brilliantly imaginative portrait of how we think, learn, remember and create, brimming with personal insights and anecdotes, and explanations of the most up-to-date, mind-bending discoveries from fields ranging from neuroscience to psychology and linguistics. This is a profound and provocative book that will transform our understanding and respect for every kind of mind.

Book Details:

  • Author: Daniel Tammet
  • Published Year: 2009
  • Rights Sold
    • UK: Hodder
    • US: Simon & Schuster
    • Dutch: Nieuwezijds
    • France: Arenes
    • Germany: Patmos
    • Japan: Kodansha
    • Korea: Hongik
    • Italy: Rizzoli
    • Simplified Chinese: Cheers Publishing Company
    • Spain: Blackie
    • Vietnam: Tre Publishing House
Daniel Tammet

Daniel Tammet

Daniel Tammet is a writer, linguist and educator. A 2007 poll of 4,000 Britons named him as one of the world's "100 living geniuses". He is the creator of 'Optimnem', a website company that has provided language learning instruction to thousands around the globe. His 2006 memoir 'Born On A Blue Day' describing his life with high-functioning autistic savant syndrome was a Sunday Times (UK) and New York Times bestseller. It has sold over half a million copies worldwide, and been translated into 18 languages.Tammet is the subject of the 2005 award-winning documentary film 'Brainman' which has ...
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Book Reviews

  • "Where Tammet really shines are in his ruminations and reflections on the inner workings of his own mind"
    Globe & Mail
  • "Far from a one-dimensional prodigy, his is a rich multi-textured intelligence. A beautiful mind."
    The Scotsman
  • "The first several chapters provoke so many "Hey, listen to this!" exclamations that anyone sitting anywhere near you will learn a lot about cognition. Or feel compelled to flee the room."
    Fortune Magazine
  • "The book, as perhaps befits its subject, doesn't just range or roam widely, it leaps like a chamois, hops like a grenouille, and skips like a carefree child, a faulty CD or a free-associating professor teaching Everything on a course in All Knowledge in the University of Life."
    The Guardian
  • "packed with his clear summaries of fascinating experiments... Recent debate has bumped up this book from delightful to vital"
    Daily Telegraph
  • "Born on a Blue Day won glowing reviews, was widely translated and has sold half a million copies. Embracing The Wide Sky is written in the same engaging voice and has similar autobiographical elements but is on the whole more outward-looking….The subtitle promises a tour d'horizon and Tammet delivers one, offering a quirky take on recent developments in such areas as linguistics, psychology and neuroscience….He is entertaining and informative about an impressive range of subjects...refreshingly sceptical about the received wisdom of the day…Embracing The Wide Sky is fun and inspirational."
    Financial Times
  • "Tammet seamlessly blends science and personal experience in a powerful paean to the mysteries and beauty of the brain. …Tammet concludes that all humans have something unique to contribute to the world, and he himself has a gift for rendering science accessible and even delightful."
    Publishers Weekly starred review
  • "...a well-received discourse about the potential of the brain..."
    Alex Bellos