We’ve all at one point or another wished for a new brain because our old one seems a bit sluggish or downright petty. The real, open-minded you, for instance, doesn’t want to be judgemental about the children of famous authors who also become authors. “Can Rebecca Walker really write?” you wonder while editing the review of her upcoming Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence (Riverhead, March). “Or did she land a contract based on the fact that her mom’s Alice Walker?”

Cue neuroplasticity (”the idea that the adult brain is capable of positive change,” to quote my reviewer Mary Ann Hughes), a hot topic in the Bookroom right now. Although it seems to apply to stroke sufferers and people grappling with moderate to severe mental disorders, I couldn’t help but imagine neuroplasticity as a more routine medicine for semi-burned-out corporate cogs like myself. In my ninth year in publishing, I admit I can be overly cynical and want to get better.

Luckily, two books on the topic are coming out in March: Norman Doidge’s The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science (Viking) and Sharon Begley’s Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential To Transform Ourselves (Ballantine).

Whether they’ll help me is unclear; what is clear, is that I’m still thinking about celebrity and publishing. Methinks another blog is forming…