Michael Corballis is professor emeritus of psychology at The University of Auckland and has the outstanding ability to transform complex scientific theories into plain English. His latest book, Pieces of Mind: 21 Short Walks Around the Human Brain, takes a fascinating journey around the human mind through topics including small talk, swearing, music and why we remember faces not names.

In 2003, Corballis wrote From Hand to Mouth: The Origins of Language. He followed this with an expansion of the subject matter in The Recursive Mind: The Origins of Human Language, Thought, and Civilisation.