INTO THE MAGIC SHOP : a neurosurgeon's quest to discover the mysteries of the brain and the... secrets of the heart.

"A prominent neurosurgeon uses his personal experience and
cutting-edge science to reveal the extraordinary things
that happen when we harness the power of both the brain
and the heart. Growing up in the high desert of California,
Jim Doty was poor, with an alcoholic father and a mother
chronically depressed and paralyzed by a stroke. Today he
is the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism
Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University, of
which the Dalai Lama is the founding benefactor. But back
then his life was at a dead end until at twelve he
wandered into a magic shop looking for a plastic thumb.
Instead he met Ruth, a woman who taught him a series of
exercises to ease his own suffering and manifest his
greatest desires. Her final mandate was that he keep his
heart open and teach these techniques to others. She gave
him his first glimpse of the unique relationship between
the brain and the heart. Doty would go on to put Ruth's
practices to work with extraordinary results power and
wealth that he could only imagine as a twelve-year-old,
riding his orange String-Ray bike. But he neglects Ruth's
most important lesson, to keep his heart open, with
disastrous results until he has the opportunity to make a
spectacular charitable contribution that will virtually
ruin him. Part memoir, part science, part inspiration, and
part practical instruction, Into the Magic Shop shows us
how we can fundamentally change our lives by first
changing our brains and our hearts"--Publisher's