Oliver Sacks

In his most extraordinary book, Oliver Sacks recounts the stories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. These are case studies of people who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people or common objects; whose limbs have become alien; who are afflicted and yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents. In Dr Sacks' splendid and sympathetic telling, each tale is a unique and deeply human study of life struggling against incredible adversity.

“My predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have been given much and I have given something in return. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”—Oliver SacksNo writer has succeeded in capturing the medical and human drama of illness as honestly and as eloquently as Oliver Sacks. During the last few months of his life, he wrote a set of essays in which he movingly explored his feelings about completing a life and coming to terms with his own death.“It is the fate of every human being,” Sacks writes, “to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.”Together, these four essays form an ode to the uniqueness of each human being and to gratitude for the gift of life.“Oliver Sacks was like no other clinician, or writer. He was drawn to the homes of the sick, the institutions of the most frail and disabled, the company of the unusual and the ‘abnormal.’ He wanted to see humanity in its many variants and to do so in his own, almost anachronistic way—face to face, over time, away from our burgeoning apparatus of computers and algorithms. And, through his writing, he showed us what he saw.”—Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A “wonderful memoir” ( Los Angeles Times ) about a brilliantly unconventional physician and writer, a man who has illuminated the many ways that the brain makes us human. • “Intimate.... Brim[s] with life and affection.” — The New York TimesWhen Oliver Sacks was twelve years old, a perceptive schoolmaster “Sacks will go far, if he does not go too far.” It is now abundantly clear that Sacks has never stopped going. With unbridled honesty and humor, Sacks writes about the passions that have driven his life—from motorcycles and weight lifting to neurology and poetry. He writes about his love affairs, both romantic and intellectual; his guilt over leaving his family to come to America; his bond with his schizophrenic brother; and the writers and scientists—W. H. Auden, Gerald M. Edelman, Francis Crick—who have influenced his work.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The "poet laureate of medicine" ( The New York Times ) and author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat weaves together stories of mind-altering experiences to reveal what they tell us about our brains, our folklore and culture, and why the potential for hallucination exists in us all. “An absorbing plunge into a mystery of the mind.” — Entertainment WeeklyTo many people, hallucinations imply madness, but in fact they are a common part of the human experience. These sensory distortions range from the shimmering zigzags of a visual migraine to powerful visions brought on by fever, injuries, drugs, sensory deprivation, exhaustion, or even grief. Hallucinations doubtless lie behind many mythological traditions, literary inventions, and religious epiphanies.Drawing on his own experiences, a wealth of clinical cases from among his patients, and famous historical examples ranging from Dostoevsky to Lewis Carroll, the legendary neurologist Oliver Sacks investigates the mystery of these sensory what they say about the working of our brains, how they have influenced our folklore and culture, and why the potential for hallucination is present in all humans.

The works of neurologist Oliver Sacks have a special place in the swarm of mind-brain studies. He has done as much as anyone to make nonspecialists aware of how much diversity gets lumped under the heading of "the human mind." The stories in An Anthropologist on Mars are medical case reports not unlike the classic tales of Berton Roueché in The Medical Detectives. Sacks's stories are of "differently brained" people, and they have the intrinsic human interest that spurred his book Awakenings to be re-created as a Robin Williams movie. The title story in Anthropologist is that of autistic Temple Grandin, whose own book Thinking in Pictures gives her version of how she feels--as unlike other humans as a cow or a Martian. The other minds Sacks describes are equally remarkable: a surgeon with Tourette's syndrome, a painter who loses color vision, a blind man given the ambiguous gift of sight, artists with memories that overwhelm "real life," the autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire, and a man with memory damage for whom it is always 1968. Oliver Sacks is the Carl Sagan or Stephen Jay Gould of his field; his books are true classics of medical writing, of the breadth of human mentality, and of the inner lives of the disabled. --Mary Ellen Curtin

Awakenings is a 1973 non-fiction book by Oliver Sacks. It recounts the life histories of those who had been victims of the 1920s encephalitis lethargica epidemic. Sacks chronicles his efforts in the late 1960s to help these patients at the Beth Abraham Hospital in the Bronx, New York.

Oliver Sacks's luminous memoir charts the growth of a mind. Born in 1933 into a family of formidably intelligent London Jews, he discovered the wonders of the physical sciences early from his parents and their flock of brilliant siblings, most notably "Uncle Tungsten" (real name, Dave), who "manufactured lightbulbs with filaments of fine tungsten wire." Metals were the substances that first attracted young Oliver, and his descriptions of their colors, textures, and properties are as sensuous and romantic as an art lover's rhapsodies over an Old Master. Seamlessly interwoven with his personal recollections is a masterful survey of scientific history, with emphasis on the great chemists like Robert Boyle, Antoine Lavoisier, and Humphry Davy (Sacks's personal hero). Yet this is not a dry intellectual autobiography; his parents in particular, both doctors, are vividly sketched. His sociable father loved house calls and "was drawn to medicine because its practice was central in human society," while his shy mother "had an intense feeling for structure ... for her [medicine] was part of natural history and biology." For young Oliver, unhappy at the brutal boarding school he was sent to during the war, and afraid that he would become mentally ill like his older brother, chemistry was a refuge in an uncertain world. He would outgrow his passion for metals and become a neurologist, but as readers of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat know, he would never leave behind his conviction that science is a profoundly human endeavor. --Wendy Smith

With the same trademark compassion and erudition he brought to The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks explores the place music occupies in the brain and how it affects the human condition. In Musicophilia, he shows us a variety of what he calls “musical misalignments.” Among them: a man struck by lightning who suddenly desires to become a pianist at the age of forty-two; an entire group of children with Williams syndrome, who are hypermusical from birth; people with “amusia,” to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and pans; and a man whose memory spans only seven seconds-for everything but music. Illuminating, inspiring, and utterly unforgettable, Musicophilia is Oliver Sacks’ latest masterpiece.

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 eventually 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, after years of isolation, reinvents herself as an outgoing and highly social member of her community, although 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 here some very strange paradoxes people who can see perfectly but not recognize their own children, blind people who become hyper-visual, or who navigate by 'tongue vision'. Along the way, he 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 best-selling author of Gratitude, On the Move, and Musicophilia, a collection of essays that displays Oliver Sacks's passionate engagement with the most compelling and seminal ideas of human endeavor: evolution, creativity, memory, time, consciousness, and experience.Oliver Sacks, a scientist and a storyteller, is beloved by readers for the extraordinary neurological case histories (Awakenings, An Anthropologist on Mars) in which he introduced and explored many now familiar disorders--autism, Tourette's syndrome, face blindness, savant syndrome. He was also a memoirist who wrote with honesty and humor about the remarkable and strange encounters and experiences that shaped him (Uncle Tungsten, On the Move, Gratitude). Sacks, an Oxford-educated polymath, had a deep familiarity not only with literature and medicine but with botany, animal anatomy, chemistry, the history of science, philosophy, and psychology. The River of Consciousness is one of two books Sacks was working on up to his death, and it reveals his ability to make unexpected connections, his sheer joy in knowledge, and his unceasing, timeless project to understand what makes us human.

The renowned neurologist and bestselling author of Awakenings takes us on a journey into the world of Deaf culture, and the underpinnings of the remarkable visual language of the congenitally deaf. • "This book will shake your preconceptions about the deaf, about language and about thought.... One of the finest and most thoughtful writers of our time." — Los Angeles Times Book ReviewLike 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."

From the bestselling author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars comes "a delightful inner and outer journey, destined to surprise and please the devoted Sacks reader" (Washington Post) - a work rich in curiosity and compassion and intellectual adventure.

Dr. Oliver Sacks's books Awakenings, An Anthropologist on Mars and the bestselling The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat have been acclaimed for their extraordinary compassion in the treatment of patients affected with profound disorders.In A Leg to Stand On, it is Sacks himself who is the an encounter with a bull on a desolate mountain in Norway has left him with a severely damaged leg. But what should be a routine recuperation is actually the beginning of a strange medical journey when he finds that his leg uncannily no longer feels part of his body. Sacks's brilliant description of his crisis and eventual recovery is not only an illuminating examination of the experience of patienthood and the inner nature of illness and health but also a fascinating exploration of the physical basis of identity.

From the bestselling author of Gratitude andOn the Move, a final volume of essays that showcases Sacks's broad range of interests--from his passions for ferns, swimming, and horsetails, to his final case histories exploring schizophrenia, dementia, and Alzheimer's.Oliver Sacks, renowned scientist and storyteller, is adored by readers for his neurological case histories, his fascination and familiarity with human behaviour at its most unexpected and unfamiliar. Everything in Its Place is a celebration of Sacks's myriad interests, all told with his characteristic compassion, erudition, and luminous prose. From the celebrated case history of Spalding Gray that appeared in The New Yorker four months before his death to reflections on mental asylums; from piercing accounts of Schizophrenia to a reminiscence of Robin Williams; from the riveting tale of a medical colleague falling victim to Alzheimer's to the cinematography of Michael Powell, this volume celebrates and reflects the wondrous curiosity of Oliver Sacks.

From the renowned neurologist and bestselling author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat comes a fascinating investigation of the many manifestations of migraine, including the visual hallucinations and distortions of space, time, and body image which migraineurs can experience.“So erudite, so gracefully written, that even those people fortunate enough never to have had a migraine in their lives should find it equally compelling.” —The New York TimesThe many manifestations of migraine can vary dramatically from one patient to another, even within the same patient at different times. Among the most compelling and perplexing of these symptoms are the strange visual hallucinations and distortions of space, time, and body image which migraineurs sometimes experience. Portrayals of these uncanny states have found their way into many works of art, from the heavenly visions of Hildegard von Bingen to Alice in Wonderland. Dr. Oliver Sacks argues that migraine cannot be understood simply as an illness, but must be viewed as a complex condition with a unique role to play in each individual's life.

The best-selling author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks is well know as an explorer of the human mind—a neurologist with a gift for complex, insightful portrayals of people and their conditions. However, he is also a card-carrying member of the American Fern Society, and since childhood has been fascinated by these primitive plants and their ability to survive and adapt in many climates.Oaxaca Journal is Sacks's spellbinding account of his trip with a group of fellow fern enthusiasts to the beautiful, history-steeped province of Oaxaca, Mexico. Bringing together Sacks's passion for natural history and the richness of human culture with his sharp eye for detail, Oaxaca Journal is a captivating evocation of a place, its plants, its people, and its myriad wonders.

An extraordinary collection of interviews with the beloved doctor and author, whose research and books inspired generations of readers Oliver Sacks—called “the poet laureate of medicine” by the New York Times—illuminated the mysteries of the brain for a wide audience in a series of richly acclaimed books, including Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and numerous New Yorker articles. In this collection of interviews, Sacks is at his most candid and disarming, rich with insights about his life and work. Any reader of Sacks will find in this book an entirely new way of looking at a brilliant writer.

Single bound volume contains:AwakeningsA Leg to Stand OnThe Man Who Mistook His Wife for a HatSeeing VoicesFrom the back cover:This special Quality Paperback Book Club edition collects four superb books by Oliver Sacks that, as the author says in his preface, "form a sort of series, or evolution." They also form a canon of the most fascinating, enlightening, and inspiring medical writing of our age.

Vintage Readers are a perfect introduction to some of the great modern writers presented in attractive, accessible paperback editions.“It is Dr. Sacks’s gift that he has found a way to enlarge our experience and understanding of what the human is.” — The Wall Street JournalDubbed “the poet laureate of medicine” by The New York Times, Oliver Sacks is a practicing neurologist and a mesmerizing storyteller. His empathetic accounts of his patients’s lives—and wrily observed narratives of his own—convey both the extreme borderlands of human experience and the miracles of ordinary seeing, speaking, hearing, thinking, and feeling.Vintage Sacks includes the introduction and case study “Rose R.” from Awakenings (the book that inspired the Oscar-nominated movie), as well as “A Deaf World” from Seeing Voices ; “The Visions of Hildegard” from Migraine ; excerpts from “Island Hopping” and “Pingelap” from The Island of the Colorblind ; “A Surgeon’s Life” from An Anthropologist on Mars ; and two chapters from Sacks’s acclaimed memoir Uncle Tungsten .

The letters of one of the greatest observers of the human species, revealing his passion for life and work, friendship and art, medicine and society, and the richness of his relationships with friends, family, and fellow intellectuals over the decades. Dr. Oliver Sacks—who describes himself variously in these pages as “a philosophical physician,” “an astronomer of the inward,” and a “neuropathological Talmudist”—wrote lengthy letters throughout his to his parents, his beloved Aunt Lennie, to friends and colleagues from London, Oxford, California, and around the world. These pages begin with his arrival in America as a young man, eager to establish himself away from the confines of postwar England, and carry us through his bumpy early career in medicine and the discovery of his writer’s voice and métier; his weightlifting, motorcycle-riding years and his explosive seasons of discovery with the patients who populate his book Awakenings; his growing interest in matters of sight and the musical brain; his many friendships and exchanges with fellow writers, artists and scientists (to say nothing of astronauts, botanists, and mathematicians), and his deep gratitude for all these relationships at the end of his life. Some letters contain the first detailed sketches of an essay forming in his mind, others reveal his agony over a tempestuous love affair or his reminiscences of childhood. From Francis Crick and Jane Goodall to W. H. Auden and Susan Sontag, from lovers to patients, and ordinary folk who wrote to him with their odd symptoms and questions, all are treated equally to Sacks’ lyrical, ferocious, penetrating and at times hilarious observations. Sensitively introduced and edited by Kate Edgar, Sacks’ longtime editor (and one of his correspondents), the letters deliver a complete portrait of Sacks as he wrestles with the workings of the brain and mind. We see, through his eyes, the beginnings of modern neuroscience as it unlocks many secrets of how the human brain defines us. We experience the arc of a remarkable personal evolution, closely following the thought processes of one of the great intellectuals of our time whose words, as evidenced in these pages, were unfailingly shaped with generosity and wonder toward other people.

Oliver Sacks was a British neurologist and author who spent his professional life in United States of America. He believed he was a sentient being, a thinking animal on this beautiful planet and that itself was a privilege and adventure for him. He was a neurologist, prolific writer, a lover of life. He inspired many to equate scientific rationality with human empathy, inspired the scientists wanting to write about their profession to write, like he successfully did. He pursued his scientific writing with a clear sense of humanity.This eBook will provide you an insight into his life, his books and the way he led his life and inspired others to lead.1.To know who is Oliver Sacks2.To know the books Oliver Sacks wrote3.To learn how Oliver Sacks worked in the field of Neurology4.To know how he was an inspiration to scientists, doctors and plenty others5.To know 25 life changing lessons from Oliver Sacks.To know more, scroll up and click on the “buy this eBook” button now. Oliver Sacks, Oliver Sacks Book, Oliver Sacks Tips, Oliver Sacks Lessons, Oliver Sacks Facts

Please Note That The Following Individual Books As Per Original ISBN and Cover Image In this Listing shall be Dispatched Oliver Sacks 3 Books Collection The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a In his most extraordinary book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks recounts the stories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. These are case studies of people who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people or common objects; whose limbs have become alien; who are afflicted and yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.In Hallucinations, with his usual elegance, curiosity, and compassion, Dr Oliver Sacks weaves together stories of his patients and of his own mind-altering experiences to illuminate what hallucinations tell us 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, a vital part of the human condition.Seeing Imaginative and insightful, Seeing Voices offers a way into a world that is, for many people, alien and unfamiliar - for to be profoundly deaf is not just to live in a world of silence, but also to live in a world where the visual is paramount. In this remarkable book, Oliver Sacks explores the consequences of this, including the different ways in which the deaf and the hearing impaired learn to categorize their respective worlds - and how they convey and communicate those experiences to others.

Edizione speciale per "La rivista dei libri"

Neurologische patiënten, schreef Oliver Sacks eens, zijn reizigers naar onvoorstelbare gebieden. In De vrouw zonder lichaam weet Sacks, met zijn enorme inlevingsvermogen en unieke, levendige schrijfstijl, de lezer telkens mee te voeren naar deze onbekende terreinen. Een groot aantal van deze neurologische case-histories speelt zich af in Sacks' artsenpraktijk. Sacks beschrijft bijvoorbeeld de vreemde zaken die gebeuren in het leven van Dr. P. (de man die zijn vrouw voor een hoed hield), die er steeds minder in slaagt gezichten ten zien, maar wel gezichten ziet als er geen te zien zijn: soms spreekt hij zelfs de gebeeldhouwde knoppen van het meubilair aan. Sacks vertelt onder meer over de charmante Jimmie.G., die geen geheugen meer heeft (de verloren zeeman) en over Christina, die op een gegeven moment haar lichaam niet meer kan voelen (de vrouw zonder lichaam). Bevat: - De man die zijn vrouw voor een hoed hield (The man who mistook his wife for a hat)- Een antropoloog op Mars (An anthropologist on Mars)- Het eiland der kleurenblinden (The island of the colorblind)

In 2015 Oliver Sacks published, My Own Life, announcing that he was terminally ill.In 1776 David Hume discovered he was mortally ill and wrote his autobiography, My Own Life.Sacks looked to Hume's work as inspiration for how to have a good death. Sacks faced his final months with a promise to himself to live 'in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can' encouraged by the words of Hume. He writes of a clarity of purpose while at the same time detaching himself from the inessentials of life. Sack's admiration for Hume is explicit in his choice of titles.

Oliver Sacks (Londen, 1933) verwierf internationale faam met het boek "Een been om op te staan (1984)", waarin de arts Sacks zijn ervaringen als patiënt verwoordt. In het boek beschrijft hij het groeiproces van ziekte naar herstel nadat hij tijdens een vakantie een val maakte en zijn been ernstig verwondde. Het duurde lang voor er redding kwam en Sacks was geschokt door de ervaring die hij had: een been dat is 'afgesneden' van de activiteiten van het lichaam en dat daardoor lijkt te verdwijnen uit de 'lichaamsbeleving'.Een been om op te staan is een uniek verslag van de ervaring van vervreemding die een mens ondergaat als de vanzelfsprekendheid van het lichamelijke hem ontvalt.Deze vervreemding is ook het onderwerp van Sacks' overige werk. In De man die zijn vrouw voor een hoed hield (1985) vertelt Sacks op fascinerende manier een aantal neurologische case-histories uit zijn eigen praktijk. Hij onderzoekt een aantal intrigerende gevallen en beschrijft patiënten met vreemde intellectuele en perceptuele afwijkingen, maar ook mensen die juisst een abnormale mentale kracht tentooonspreiden.Sacks raakt met zijn werk aan de vreemde uitersten van het menselijk bestaan. Door zijn ogen zien wij de kwetsbare, lichamelijke wortels van onze gevoelens van identiteit en volledigheid. Dank zij het bewonderenswaardige inlevingsvermogen van Sacks hebben hedendaagse lezers en artsen geleerd zich vragen te stellen over hun eigen persoonlijkheid en leven.

Après une opération, Virgil qui se croyait définitivement aveugle depuis sa prime enfance, recouvre soudain la vue. Pour la première fois depuis quarante ans, il voit ! Pourtant, malgré ce véritable miracle, les choses ne sont pas aussi simples qu'on aurait pu le croire. Difficile, en effet, de se fier à sa vue quand on n'a jamais utilisé ce sens. Virgil est, en quelque sorte, un adulte qui découvre le monde avec les yeux d'un nouveau-né. Et cette expérience, aussi excitante soit-elle, draine avec elle son lot d'angoisses... La fiancée de Virgil, Amy, va alors devenir son initiatrice dans cette redécouverte du monde. Oliver Sacks a bâti cette " histoire paradoxale " à partir d'une étude clinique et a partagé, pendant quelques mois, la vie de Virgil et d'Amy.

In January of 1999, I received the following letter, from a woman I will call Anna H.:Dear Dr. Sacks,My (very unusual) problem, in one sentence, and in non-medical terms, is:I can’t read. I can’t read music, or anything else.In the ophthalmologist’s office, I can read the individual letters on the eye chart down to the last line. But I cannot read words, and music gives me the same problem. I have struggled with this for years, have been to the best doctors, and no one has been able to help.I would be ever so happy and grateful if you could find the time to see me.Sincerely yours,Anna H.

Oliver Sacks Collection 3 Books Bundle includes titles in this Seeing A Journey into the World of the Deaf, The Mind's Eye, Migraine. Seeing A Journey into the World of the Deaf Imaginative and insightful, Seeing Voices offers a way into a world that is, for many people, alien and unfamiliar - for to be profoundly deaf is not just to live in a world of silence, but also to live in a world where the visual is paramount. In this remarkable book, Oliver Sacks explores the consequences of this, including the different ways in which the deaf and the hearing impaired learn to categorize their respective worlds - and how they convey and communicate those experiences to others. The Mind's Eye 'Oliver Sacks is a perfect antidote to the anaesthetic of familiarity. His writing turns brains and minds transparent' Observer How does the brain perceive and interpret information from the eye? And what happens when the process is disrupted? 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 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 - and The Mind's Eye is testament to the myriad ways that we, as humans, are capable of rising to this challenge. Migraine Migraine is an age-old - the first recorded instances date back over two thousand years - and often debilitating condition, affecting a 'substantial minority' of the population across the globe. In Migraine, Oliver Sacks offers at once a medical account of its occurrence and management; an exploration of its physical, physiological, and psychological underpinnings and consequences; and a meditation on the nature and experience of health and illness.