Limitless

Imagine a drug that made your brain function to its full potential. A drug that allowed you pick up a foreign language in a single day. A drug that helped you process information so fast you could see patterns in the stock market. Just as his life is fading into mediocrity, Eddie Spinola comes across such a pill: MDT-48 - a sort of Viagra for the brain. But while its benefits materialise quickly, so do certain unwelcome side-effects.

Now a major motion picture starring Bradley Cooper, Robert DeNiro, and Abbie Cornish. Alan Glynn's Limitless is a high-concept thriller for this Adderall age, and a haunting meditation on the allure and the curse of human potential. A burnout at thirty-five, months behind on his book, low on...