The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales
by Oliver Sacks
|
|
Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales.
discuss this book
friend reviews (0)
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
other reviews (showing 1-20 of 3909)
Read in June, 1996
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
bookshelves:
junioryearadvisoryreadingnovels
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
While I was reading this chapter of this book, I came to realize that our hearing aid and our vision for music are very important because when Dr. P lost his vivid imagination, he relied on the body-music instead of body-image. Dr. P had a “massive tumour or degenerative process in the visual parts of his brain” (Sacks 19). I couldn’t believe that he was actually a music teacher who couldn’t recognize his students but when they moved, he seems to r...more
While I was reading this chapter of this book, I came to realize that our hearing aid and our vision for music are very important because when Dr. P lost his vivid imagination, he relied on the body-music instead of body-image. Dr. P had a “massive tumour or degenerative process in the visual parts of his brain” (Sacks 19). I couldn’t believe that he was actually a music teacher who couldn’t recognize his students but when they moved, he seems to r...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
bookshelves:
nonfiction,
science-health
I first heard about this book when my biology professor mentioned it in class in reference to right-brain and left-brain disorders. Just last year, I had the good fortune to see the author himself - Dr. Sacks - speak at the university in my hometown. He was a dynamic and entertaining speaker and from then on, I resolved to try out his books. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat matched its author. The book is a collection of case studies on Dr. Sacks's patients with neurological disorders. Sac...more
Like this review?
yes
(2 people liked it)
1 comments
Read in October, 2007
Over the course of his long career as a neurologist, Sacks has had plenty of interesting cases. It makes you appreciate what a complex organ the brain is when you see all the different ways that impairments can manifest themselves. Sacks is at his best when he's describing the most unusual quirks. The first chapter -- the case that gives the book its title -- is a good lead-in to the weird behaviors that follow.
At the time the book was written, these disorders must have seemed even more u...more
At the time the book was written, these disorders must have seemed even more u...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in March, 2008
Dear Dr. Sacks,
On page 112 of the paperback edition of your book, the second paragraph begins with the following sentence:
"And with this, no feeling that he has lost feeling (for the feeling he has lost), no feeling that he has lost the depth, that unfathomable, mysterious, myriad-levelled depth which somehow defines identity or reality."
I've read this sentence at least twelve times, and I still don't even have the slightest inkling of what the hell it means. What ...more
On page 112 of the paperback edition of your book, the second paragraph begins with the following sentence:
"And with this, no feeling that he has lost feeling (for the feeling he has lost), no feeling that he has lost the depth, that unfathomable, mysterious, myriad-levelled depth which somehow defines identity or reality."
I've read this sentence at least twelve times, and I still don't even have the slightest inkling of what the hell it means. What ...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
bookshelves:
health
Read in January, 2008
very interesting neurological case studies that begged me to reconsider intelligence and "normalcy" particularly in terms of visual perception and its relationship to reality as well as the profound structure that the arts (he specifically mentions music, dance, story-telling and drawing) provide for those with the inability to form or develop conceptual frameworks. Indeed, it seems that the fine arts aren't just high-concepts of beauty and art, but healing mechanisms crucial to many ...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
Read in January, 2002
recommends it for:
anyone curious on human mind
I can't recall exactly why and when I was first drawn to Oliver Sacks' writing. 'Awakenings' was the first Sacks' book that I read and I fell in love with his writings rightaway. I've always been fascinated with the human brain and Dr. Sacks' journals on his neurology cases are full with unusual insights on how the mind works through defects and diseases.
Although the initial interest was admittedly more on the 'freak-shows' (imagine someone who actually sees his wife as a HAT, or someone who...more
Although the initial interest was admittedly more on the 'freak-shows' (imagine someone who actually sees his wife as a HAT, or someone who...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in October, 2007
Some of the writings collected here were originally published under the heading "Curios", and they successfully deliver on that score -- fantastic, unimaginable, curious in the extreme.
But the book is about more than that --
Split between left and right brain, art and science, romantic evocation and clinical ___, emotion and cognition, experience and abstraction.
His case builds, curio after curio, for a "romantic neuropsychology," one of people, whole patients, wit...more
But the book is about more than that --
Split between left and right brain, art and science, romantic evocation and clinical ___, emotion and cognition, experience and abstraction.
His case builds, curio after curio, for a "romantic neuropsychology," one of people, whole patients, wit...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in November, 2007
'animals get diseases, but only man falls radically into sickness.'
'But were there depths in this unmemoried man, depths of an abiding feeling and thinking, or had he been reduced to a sort of Humean drivel, a mere succession of unrelated impressions and events?'
'"Dangerous wellness", "morbid brilliance", a deceptive euphoria with abysses beneath – this is the trap promised and threatened by excess, whether it be set by Nature, in the form of some intoxicating disor...more
'But were there depths in this unmemoried man, depths of an abiding feeling and thinking, or had he been reduced to a sort of Humean drivel, a mere succession of unrelated impressions and events?'
'"Dangerous wellness", "morbid brilliance", a deceptive euphoria with abysses beneath – this is the trap promised and threatened by excess, whether it be set by Nature, in the form of some intoxicating disor...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
bookshelves:
favoritesincessantlyreread
Completely changed my philosophy of mind. Very accessibly, and anecdotally, takes a look at the ways a person's entire personality or concept of the world can be warped by simple and localized damage to the brain.
Sacks is definitely playing the affable old med school prof here, spinning anecdotes into sweet little stories about the strange yet lovable people he's met in his research. Still, his writing is fantastically clear and the stories drag you in, from the man with no long term memor...more
Sacks is definitely playing the affable old med school prof here, spinning anecdotes into sweet little stories about the strange yet lovable people he's met in his research. Still, his writing is fantastically clear and the stories drag you in, from the man with no long term memor...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
Brainiacs... and those with regular brains
Divergent facets of my life are uniting to deliver an auspicious message: We do not know the limits of our brains. In yoga I learn about clearing space in my mind for peace. Ditto Buddhism. In books on writing I learn to allow my brain to run wild, the best form of freedom.
And this book is no exception to my current life-theme. Split into bite-sized case studies, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is challenging, chilling, scintillating, and joyful. A truly humanitarian physicia...more
And this book is no exception to my current life-theme. Split into bite-sized case studies, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is challenging, chilling, scintillating, and joyful. A truly humanitarian physicia...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
bookshelves:
nonfiction
Read in June, 2007
A fascinating book that is a collection of clinical stories about neurological pathologies. It's a fascinating book so far, dealing with what governs our always-shifting sense of reality. Highlights so far have been the title essay, about a professor who couldn't see concrete reality, only the abstract and ritualized. Also, the essay titled, "The President's Speech," about a group of aphasics who couldn't understand written speech, only inferring meaning from body language and facial...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
A beautifully written collection of rather disturbing yet fascinating clinical essays on various neurological pathologies. The book reads more like a collection of short stories rather than clinical studies illuminating the complexities and delicate balances in the human brain and the bizarre things that can happen when these balances are upset. He is able to position these neurological disorders in a very unique light, making me empathize with the patient and get a tiny glimpse of what it must ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2008
Yes, this was an effective summary/presentation of very complicated neurological conditions. But beyond each story it gets bogged down in a bit more scientific jargon than I'd like. Fascinating stuff but it may be easier to digest as magazine articles. With all that we've learned about the human brain, Sack's stories convinced me that it (the brain) is even more mysterious and wonderful than we ever imagined. Internal songs that play over and over again in our head? People that are stuck in time...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in July, 1980
recommends it for:
Anyone with an interest in out-of-the-ordinary people and events.
Absolutely amazing! In "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat", the author, a prominent neurosurgeun, introduces the reader to his most interesting patients, all of whom have sustained - and are coping with - varying degrees of brain damage. In this collection, you'll gain insights into the astonishing inner world of the neurological patient: the titular patient, who was completely baffled by an object he was asked to identify - until he smelled it; the man who mistook a zoo's tigres...more
Like this review?
yes
(1 person liked it)
add a comment
This is a very good book if you have a handle on some medical terminology and don't mind reading some rather text-bookish discussions. The book is compiled from some of the more bizarre cases of neurologist Oliver Sacks. The stories themselves are pretty crazy and some of them are downright amazing. The only issue I have is that some of the stories are just so darn intriguing that you want to know more of why and how the people turned out the way they did as well as how everything turned out fo...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
bookshelves:
read-ages-ago
Read in January, 1998
recommends it for:
Anyone interested in consciousness and the brain
Oliver Sacks is that rare breed . . . a docter who really isn't afraid to get down there with his patients and relate with them as equals. This adds an extra dimension to all of his work.
This book is a series of chapters which discuss the good Doctor's case studies over the years, revealing many curious behaviours and quirks that arise when the brain functions atypically. It is a bit more engaging and entertaining than most texts you will read on this kind of thing, yet still learned enough...more
This book is a series of chapters which discuss the good Doctor's case studies over the years, revealing many curious behaviours and quirks that arise when the brain functions atypically. It is a bit more engaging and entertaining than most texts you will read on this kind of thing, yet still learned enough...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in April, 2008
recommended to Terri by:
Jess Walter-Homarecommends it for: people interested in psychology, medicine, mental illness
I held this book hostage from the library until I could finish it -- resulting in a $6 fine. It didn't take me a long time to read it because it was boring, but rather, I wanted to ensure I was reading during times where I could really stop and think. This book took a wonderful look at people who have been affected by mental trauma/diseases/illnesses and the ways in which their disorders can be seen in a postitive light. For instance -- a young boy named Jose struck with meningitis and then left...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
bookshelves:
biology,
health,
medical,
science
Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
materialists, those fearful of neurological damage
This book is a strange combination of poetry and clinical diagnosis. The book details the lives/outcomes of patients who have suffered some kind of brain damage. In one story, he chronicles two men who have their long term memory obliterated by alcoholism. In another, he describes a woman who regained memories after a stroke. The stories are funny, heartwarming, depressing, or just plain sad. While the clinical details are fascinating (by seeing what a brain that's all wonky does, you can g...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2008
This book was a struggle for me. I found the case studies interesting, but ultimately, I could never really get into it. I only read about 2/3s of the book before I had to quit. I found the medical jargon and science in the book to be over my head, and I didn't feel like it was written for laypeople. Sacks seemed to assume that his readers knew a lot of the subject matter and didn't need explanations, but I did.
I also didn't like that some of his stories seemed to end abruptly. He tells us a...more
I also didn't like that some of his stories seemed to end abruptly. He tells us a...more
Like this review?
yes
2 comments

























