In the Mind's Eye: Visual Thinkers, Gifted People With Dyslexia and Other Learning Difficulties, Computer Images and the Ironies of Creativity

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Summary: Dyslexics Untied! (Einstein and a bunch of others, at least)
Review: This is probably the most definitive and best-researched book on the topic of dyslexic cognition available. Having done quite a bit of research on the gift of dyslexia while co-authoring a book about therapies, I found Tom West's accounts of notable dyslexics both fascinating and invaluable, as you can see if you read the review of the book elsewhere on the internet. This is a masterful job of research and insight.

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Summary: West clarifies strengths of the attention deficit disordered
Review: West describes the subjects of this book as dyslexic. I have developed a special interest in treating adolescents and adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD) and have never read a clearer or more helpful explanation of how differently the ADD person thinks and processes information from the rest of us (the "Earth People", one of my patients calls the non-ADD persons, since he spent all his undiagnosed life feeling as if he were from another planet). So I chose to read ADD wherever West writes "dyslexia". Be that as it may, and whatever the terminology, it is enormously supportive and helpful to my ADD patients when I explain their observations of their differences in West's terms. There is a poster in my waiting room showing a picture of Einstein, with a reference to how poorly he did in elementary school and the caption: "They said he was a nice enough kid, but no rocket scientist..." West discusses Einstein, and Faraday, and Maxwell, and how they thought differently; what a useful way to understand that not all differences from the norm are inferiorities. For the kid or adult who wonders if she is stupid but is certain she doesn't learn the same way as most of those around her; for the parent who is searching for some way to validate an unhappy child; for the teacher who is struggling to understand the pupil who seems to have brilliant flashes interspersed with an almost stuporous inattention and a talent for intrusion and non sequitors; for the mental health worker who is searching for a model with which to understand these most enigmatic clients; for the skills coach who KNOWS these kids and adults are NOT "lazy, stupid, or crazy", and needs some way of showing this to them... for all these sojourners with the ADD person, this book is enormously helpful and stimulating. I use material from it every day, gratefully.