How can an errant protein or minor DNA glitch make you lose your mind?

Sarah Manning Pascon joins us to talk about her book, A Molecule Away for Madness, Tales of the High Jacked Brain.

What makes cooking with a walk so special?

Kenji Lopez-Alte will be here to talk about his new book, The Walk, Recipes and Techniques.

Plus, our critics will be here to talk about the books they've been reading and reviewing.

This is the Book Review Podcast for the New York Times.

It's March 18th. I'm Pamela Paul.

Sarah Manning Pascon joins us now from Philadelphia, where she is an assistant professor of clinical neurology at the University of Pennsylvania,

and the author of her first book, it's called A Molecule Away from Madness, Tales of the High Jacked Brain.

Sarah, thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me.

I mentioned to you before we started recording, but I'll mention for listeners, I read your book and loved it.

My 12-year-old son read your book and loved it.

One of the things that you did so well in this book was explained science really through stories and in particular through case histories.

The style reminded me a little bit of Lisa Sanders' diagnosis column in the New York Times magazine, and if you're familiar with that,

that each one has written kind of like a mystery, and I'm curious what the thinking was behind that.

I think I wanted to capture how this actually unfolds in real time.

For a lot of us, we go to doctors and you get a diagnosis, and it says if that diagnosis has always existed.

But in fact, the diagnosis was invented by someone who discovered something, and actually the history behind these diseases is often lost.

And actually, since writing the book when I see patients in clinic, when I diagnose someone with Alzheimer's disease, I tell them,

you know, this is how we figured out what Alzheimer's disease is. This is who it was. This is how it happened.

And I think it's more meaningful and actually allows us to understand diseases better.

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