I see what you mean - I think there can be both :). For me "SICP of.." means "Thought-provoking, technically rigorous, enjoyable, somewhat comprehensive, and layman-compatible introduction to..", more or less.
Some books I enjoyed (but which don't necessary achieve that status) are:
- Theoretical Neuroscience by Dayan & Abbott (this has math - but it's quite polite about it, and remains readable if you skip the equations)
But those are more theory than biology - would be really interested in a "nuts & bolts" presentation of the brain that is readable and engaging (i.e. nice exercises spread throughout the text, if such a thing is possible)
Trappenbergs, computational neuroscience is really nice too if you're coming from a math/physics/c-s background it's got just enough bio to know what's going on while covering the basic computational features.
Some books I enjoyed (but which don't necessary achieve that status) are:
- Theoretical Neuroscience by Dayan & Abbott (this has math - but it's quite polite about it, and remains readable if you skip the equations)
- Handbook of Brain Theory and Neural Networks:http://mitpress.mit.edu/0262011972
But those are more theory than biology - would be really interested in a "nuts & bolts" presentation of the brain that is readable and engaging (i.e. nice exercises spread throughout the text, if such a thing is possible)