Born on a Blue Day

Autistic savant Daniel Tammet’s memoir tells how his extraordinary mind naturally assigns color, sound and personality to nearly every piece of information he takes in. Four is his favorite number because, like him, it’s shy and quiet. His unique mental processes allow him to remember vast amounts of information, but cause his writing to digress into the exact contents of his suitcase. Still, his skills aren’t all wasted on minutiae. He can calculate huge sums in seconds, learn new languages with astonishing speed and once recited 22,514 digits of pi. Unlike most other savants, Tammet is able to describe his mental processes in a comprehensible way. Dense with detail, Born on a Blue Day gives the reader an insightful glimpse into the beautiful cacophony swirling in Tammet’s mind.