From the bestselling author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat • Fascinating portraits of neurological disorder in which men, women, and one extraordinary child emerge as brilliantly adaptive personalities, whose conditions have not so much debilitated them as ushered them into another reality. Here are seven detailed narratives of neurological patients, including a surgeon consumed by the compulsive tics of Tourette's syndrome unless he is operating; an artist who loses all sense of color in a car accident, but finds a new sensibility and creative power in black and white; and an autistic professor who cannot decipher the simplest social exchange between humans, but has built a career out of her intuitive understanding of animal behavior. Sacks combines the well honed mind of an academician with the verve of a true storyteller.
The classic account of survivors of the sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I—and their return to the world after decades of “sleep.” • “One of the most beautifully composed and moving works of our time" (The Washington Post) from the distinguished neurologist and the national bestselling author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Awakenings—which inspired the major motion picture starring Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams—is the remarkable story of a group of patients who contracted sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I. Frozen for decades in a trance-like state, these men and women were given up as hopeless until 1969, when Dr. Oliver Sacks gave them the then-new drug L-DOPA, which had an astonishing, explosive, "awakening" effect. Dr. Sacks recounts the moving case histories of his patients, their lives, and the extraordinary transformations which went with their reintroduction to a changed world.
Like The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, this is a fascinating voyage into a strange and wonderful land, a provocative meditation on communication, biology, adaptation, and culture. In Seeing Voices, Oliver Sacks turns his attention to the subject of deafness, and the result is a deeply felt portrait of a minority struggling for recognition and respect — a minority with its own rich, sometimes astonishing, culture and unique visual language, an extraordinary mode of communication that tells us much about the basis of language in hearing people as well. Seeing Voices is, as Studs Terkel has written, "an exquisite, as well as revelatory, work."
Hallucinations, for most people, imply madness. But there are many different types of non-psychotic hallucination caused by various illnesses or injuries, by intoxication--even, for many people, by falling sleep. From the elementary geometrical shapes that we see when we rub our eyes to the complex swirls and blind spots and zigzags of a visual migraine, hallucination takes many forms. At a higher level, hallucinations associated with the altered states of consciousness that may come with sensory deprivation or certain brain disorders can lead to religious epiphanies or conversions. Drawing on a wealth of clinical examples from his own patients as well as historical and literary descriptions, Oliver Sacks investigates the fundamental differences and similarities of these many sorts of hallucinations, what they say about the organization and structure of our brains, how they have influenced every culture's folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all.
Long before Oliver Sacks became a distinguished neurologist and bestselling writer, he was a small English boy fascinated by metals–also by chemical reactions (the louder and smellier the better), photography, squids and cuttlefish, H.G. Wells, and the periodic table. In this endlessly charming and eloquent memoir, the author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Awakenings chronicles his love affair with science and the magnificently odd and sometimes harrowing childhood in which that love affair unfolded. In Uncle Tungsten we meet Sacks’ extraordinary family, from his surgeon mother (who introduces the fourteen-year-old Oliver to the art of human dissection) and his father, a family doctor who imbues in his son an early enthusiasm for housecalls, to his “Uncle Tungsten,” whose factory produces tungsten-filament lightbulbs. We follow the young Oliver as he is exiled at the age of six to a grim, sadistic boarding school to escape the London Blitz, and later watch as he sets about passionately reliving the exploits of his chemical heroes–in his own home laboratory. Uncle Tungsten is a crystalline view of a brilliant young mind springing to life, a story of growing up which is by turns elegiac, comic, and wistful, full of the electrifying joy of discovery.
The irresistible picture books and novels that make up The Adventures of Cosmo – Our Hero of the Environment have been a smash success in Quebec, and they are now available to readers in English. Cosmo is a dodo who was born on the island of Mauritius. But the fearless, flightless birds were no match for humans and their guns, and about three hundred years ago, dodos became extinct. Cosmo is the last of his kind, and since he knows firsthand the toll that people can take on Earth’s species, he becomes a champion of the environment. In this critically acclaimed new series, Cosmo’s adventures take him through space on his mission. Part adventure, part message, and all fun, The Adventures of Cosmo – Our Hero of the Environment are perfect ways to introduce children to positive action on behalf of our planet.
In The Mind’s Eye, Oliver Sacks tells the stories of people who are able to navigate the world and communicate with others despite losing what many of us consider indispensable senses and abilities: the power of speech, the capacity to recognize faces, the sense of three-dimensional space, the ability to read, the sense of sight. For all of these people, the challenge is to adapt to a radically new way of being in the world. There is Lilian, a concert pianist who becomes unable to read music and is eventually unable even to recognize everyday objects, and Sue, a neurobiologist who has never seen in three dimensions, until she suddenly acquires stereoscopic vision in her fifties. There is Pat, who reinvents herself as a loving grandmother and active member of her community, despite the fact that she has aphasia and cannot utter a sentence, and Howard, a prolific novelist who must find a way to continue his life as a writer even after a stroke destroys his ability to read. And there is Dr. Sacks himself, who tells the story of his own eye cancer and the bizarre and disconcerting effects of losing vision to one side. Sacks explores some very strange paradoxes—people who can see perfectly well but cannot recognize their own children, and blind people who become hyper-visual or who navigate by “tongue vision.” He also considers more fundamental questions: How do we see? How do we think? How important is internal imagery—or vision, for that matter? Why is it that, although writing is only five thousand years old, humans have a universal, seemingly innate, potential for reading? The Mind’s Eye is a testament to the complexity of vision and the brain and to the power of creativity and adaptation. And it provides a whole new perspective on the power of language and communication, as we try to imagine what it is to see with another person’s eyes, or another person’s mind.
From "the poet laureate of medicine" and national bestselling author of Awakenings comes a fascinating investigation of Southern Mexico that explores the origins of chocolate and mescal, pre-Columbian culture and hallucinogens, and the peculiar passions of botanists. "Light and fast-moving. . . . Among the botanical and anthropological observations, one catches glimpses of Sacks's inner life: his preoccupation with dualities, his nearly Victorian sense of modesty, his fascination with the world around him." —The New Yorker Since childhood, Oliver Sacks was fascinated by ferns: an ancient class of plants able to survive and adapt in many climates. Along with a delightful group of fellow fern aficionados—mathematicians, poets, artists, and assorted botanists and birders—he embarked on an exploration of Southern Mexico, a region that is also rich in human history and culture. Combining Sacks's enthusiasm for natural history and the richness of humanity with his sharp and observant eye for detail, Oaxaca Journal is a rare treat.
From the legendary author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: a volume of essays on everything from primordial life and the mysteries of the brain to the ancient ginkgo and the power of the written word. "Magical . . . [Everything in Its Place] showcases the neurologist's infinitely curious mind."—People Magazine In this volume, Oliver Sacks examines the many passions that defined his life--both as a doctor engaged with the central questions of human existence and as a polymath conversant in all the sciences. Everything in Its Place brings together writings on a rich variety of topics. Why do humans need gardens? How, and when, does a physician tell his patient she has Alzheimer's? What is social media doing to our brains? In several of the compassionate case histories included here, we see Sacks consider the enigmas of depression, psychosis, and schizophrenia for the first time. In others, he returns to conditions that have long fascinated him: Tourette's syndrome, aging, dementia, and hallucinations. In counterpoint to these elegant investigations of what makes us human, this volume also includes pieces that celebrate Sacks's love of the natural world--and his final meditations on life in the twenty-first century.
