Every day I send my kids out the door to school with this admonition, ‘you can choose to be happy.’ More often than not, they roll their eyes, but in Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain Elaine Fox (no relation) offers a scientific argument for my contention. After much research, and in comprehensive, but comprehensible detail, Professor Fox provides a mental map to the sunny side of the street. For optimists and pessimists alike, this fascinating book is a must read.

'Every experience you have, from the most trivial to the most significant, alters the brain. Elaine Fox offers scientifically based advice about how to make the most of this, how to be in charge of changing your brain for the better.

Drawing on a host of studies in neurobiology and genetics, as well as evolutionary and behavioral psychology, Fox explores the struggle between the parts of the brain associated with fear and pessimism and those associated with pleasure and optimism…. Fox introduces readers to many new concepts from experimental psychology and recent research on neuroplasticity and neurogenesis…. [A] welcome, if intellectually demanding, introduction to a key area of brain research.

A psychologist looks at the influence that outlook – a tendency toward optimism or pessimism – can play in shaping the events in our lives…. An insightful addition to the self-help bookshelf.

Fox constructs an elegant narrative from neuroimaging results, her clever psychology experiments, and the interaction of genetics and environment.

An impassioned, visionary plea to restore to our children the spirit of adventure, freedom and closeness to nature that is their birthright. We must hear it and act on it before it is too late

Scintillating, passionate, supremely honest. Adults and children need more books like this

Jay Griffiths is one of our most poetic and passionate critics of the ways of civilisation. Provocative, illuminating and shamelessly romantic

a great book...if you need to be reminded that there is value to be discovered in experiences when they seem nothing but pointless and painful, and choices to be made when you think you have none, I'd recommend it

Captivating...fascinating...His answer to the questions “Nature or nurture?” is both. If that sounds like a hedge, it isn’t: instead, it’s a testament to the author’s close attention to nuance.

Intelligently, rigorously and politely debunks the "10,000 hours" myth

Perhaps the most fascinating book of the year... Absorbing and full of fascinating detail

This subtle, enthralling study by the Sports Illustrated writer avoids making excessive claims for genetics

David Epstein's The Sports Gene has a discussion that badly needs to happen at all levels in sport; about the relationships between talent, genetics, practice and success in sport

Respect is due to Epstein…for injecting some objectivity into the debate with his gripping new tome

The Sports Gene offers a fascinating insight into the topic of nature v nurture…a great read

A welcome corrective to those who have deliberately underplayed the notion that genetic makeup is relevant

An illuminating read

Fascinating

Well written and contains important research, and has some wonderful anecdotes

The most intriguing sports books of the year, and possibly the best-researched

An enjoyable mixture of easily digestible science, anecdote and argument

This is a book to counter the 10,000-hour rule popularised by Malcolm Gladwell

In a book packed with fascinating anecdotes, it’s hard to pick out highlights … If sport is a passion, The Sports Gene is required reading

Highly entertaining and enlightening

The Sports Gene does not try to simplify the nature vs nurture argument, but it does provide a welcome corrective to those who have underplayed the notion that genetic make-up is relevant

Epstein explores this territory with canny verve

Interesting reading

Dazzling and illuminating

Epstein is too respectful of the complexity of his subject matter to leap to any grand conclusions. The book was conceived partially as a rebuttal to glib theorising, and it is all the more fascinating as a result

Fascinating from start to finish

Epstein forces us to rethink the very nature of athleticism

Looks at the science of extraordinary athletic performance.

Captivating… Dazzling and illuminating

Epstein is not afraid to follow science in “trekking deep into the bramble patches of sensitive topics like gender and race"

Captivating… In a particularly fascinating chapter, Epstein investigates an old theory that purports to explain why Jamaica produces so many Olympic sprinters