An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales

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An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales

by Oliver Sacks (Goodreads Author)

4.16 of 5 stars 4.16 · rating details · 6,460 ratings · 402 reviews

This collection of essays are mainly casebook studies. Neurological patients, Oliver Sacks once wrote, are travellers to unimaginable lands. This book offers portraits of seven such travellers, including a surgeon consumed by the compulsive tics of Tourette's syndrome unless he is operating, an artist who loses all sense of colour in a car accident, but finds a new sensibi...more

Paperback, 318 pages

Published 1995 by Picador

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Apr 11, 2009 Manny rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science

This book contains an extended, very sympathetic case-study of Temple Grandin, the world's most famous autistic person. I read it when my older son, Jonathan, was diagnosed autistic at age about 10. Obviously, given that it took so long to figure out why he was odd, he isn't that much like Grandin, but the book did give me some important insights.

If you're autistic, your fundamental problem is that you don't naturally understand how other people think and feel. Many women summarize this as "you...more This book contains an extended, very sympathetic case-study of Temple Grandin, the world's most famous autistic person. I read it when my older son, Jonathan, was diagnosed autistic at age about 10. Obviously, given that it took so long to figure out why he was odd, he isn't that much like Grandin, but the book did give me some important insights.

If you're autistic, your fundamental problem is that you don't naturally understand how other people think and feel. Many women summarize this as "you're like a man, but more so". If you're strongly autistic, you have so little ability to relate to other people that you don't even pick up language skills. People who are mildly autistic learn to speak, but they almost always talk in a more or less unusual way. Their prosody is odd (they speak with flat or unnatural intonation), and they haven't picked up all of the subtle rules that govern correct use of language. As a linguist, I can pinpoint some of the things Jonathan does. For instance, he forms certain WH-questions that aren't permitted in standard English. He'll say, of someone he likes, "What do you think I'm doing to Sarah?", to which the intended answer is "I'm missing her". Try explaining just why this is wrong! More seriously, he has trouble understanding why things are not permitted by the rules of social interaction, which can get him into trouble.

What's fascinating about Temple Grandin is that she's shown how an autistic person can to a large extent overcome their problems, consciously learning behaviors which most people acquire without ever even knowing they are doing it. She's become a well-known advocate for autistic people, and argues convincingly that they often have compensating skills which "normal" people lack. I agree with her; I know a lot of mathematicians, and, once you are familiar with the literature on autism, it's obvious that it's not uncommon in the world of mathematics. You see that the ability to shut out the world and focus intensely on an abstract problem can be a huge strength.

Jonathan, who's now 23, has an incredibly retentive memory. He can give you minute descriptions of things that happened to him when he was three or four years old. But he hasn't figured out how to get his act together and use his abilities systematically, and it's not clear he ever will.

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Apr 21, 2013 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: voyeurs

Shelves: science

Confession time ! I must admit - friends, judge not lest ye be judged - that I boohooed my way through the last part of Awakenings The Movie, with all those frozen people coming back to life and catching tennis balls and (spoiler alerts) then living life to the FULL for one brief shining moment, and doing the hoochy coochy, which is the only dance they could remember from the 1920s which is when they all froze up, and then Mr De Niro doing the herky jerk dance which was one of his own invention,...more

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May 16, 2007 cathy rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone, especially those who want to learn how to write a case study.

Shelves: non-fiction-read

In An Anthropologist on Mars, Oliver Sacks seamlessly weaves fascinating patient stories and lessons in neurology for the layperson. This may sound quite dry if you're not into reading about bizarre behavior from brain circuitry goes awry, but Sacks makes the science very palatable. He acts as our well-traveled tour guide as we explore the everyday lives and thinking processes of seven people who have made creative use of their cognitive hiccups.

Some of the patients featured in this collection o...more In An Anthropologist on Mars, Oliver Sacks seamlessly weaves fascinating patient stories and lessons in neurology for the layperson. This may sound quite dry if you're not into reading about bizarre behavior from brain circuitry goes awry, but Sacks makes the science very palatable. He acts as our well-traveled tour guide as we explore the everyday lives and thinking processes of seven people who have made creative use of their cognitive hiccups.

Some of the patients featured in this collection of case studies have managed neurological differences from birth; others have had to re-program and mourn grave deficits due to freak events. Dr. Sacks explains the malleability and compensatory functions built into the brain when one portion becomes dim. Perhaps more importantly, he demonstrates via his subjects how the human spirit also adapts after sensory loss. His tale of a painter who was made colorblind after a car accident is an example of the latter: Sacks works through myriad possible explanations for this man’s newly colorless world; however, he is eventually left without a reason—or a cure. During this process, the artist manages to reform his creative identity; he comes to see his newly gray vision as "pure" and not “distracted by color”, so previously unseen forms begin to shape his noirish, multi-shadowed work.

I read this book about 4 years ago and the story that has stayed with me is that of a surgeon with uncontrollable Tourette's. This man is unable to stop his violent tics and outbursts even for a few moments, but he is allowed a mysteriously zen-like reprieve when his hands (and quite possibly his mind) are steadied as he performs surgery. The story illustrates for me what I think is Sacks' message: People are not their pathologies, and talents and interests should always be encouraged, even in the face of what we sometimes misdiagnose as deficits.

Neurology for Sacks is a vocation, not a career. He conducts his research and writing in a truly humanistic spirit, and what I most love about both is the compassion and respect he shows his patients; they are not treated as curious oddities or guinea pigs, as is the case in so many medical and psychological case studies. Throughout all his work Sacks maintains a sense of wonder about the people he treats. He demonstrates that people who seem detached from experience can have full lives, and in some cases, an inner life that is cognitively richer than that of "normal" folks ( i.e. those of us unhindered by neurological or physical challenges).

The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat is considered essential Sacks, but for reasons stated--especially that surgeon--I much prefer this collection.
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Jun 01, 2012 Cindy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, medical

Fascinating reading of seven case histories of people with neurological disorders including Temple Grandin who is autistic and the author of Emergence, Labeled Autistic which I read several years ago and loved.

The case of the colorblind painter and to see and not to see were very interesting to me. People who had long term blindness, upon having sight restored have no visual memories to support a perception of what they are seeing. They cannot understand size or distance. Someone living their w...more

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May 08, 2007 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As someone who thinks a fair amount about memory, consciousness, intelligence, etc, I have developed a minor obsession with Oliver Sacks. "The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" probably taught me more about the way our brains work than all of the psychology classes I took in school - if for no other reason than the fact that the neurology is always seen through Sacks' humanistic lens. "Anthropologist" is another collection of case studies - much longer than their counterparts in "Man", since t...more

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Dec 17, 2007 David rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2007, anthologies-and-collections

For some reason, the essays of Oliver Sacks don't rock my world. He's got the attention-grabbing title thing down pat, and each case study does have a kernel of interest. But generally, I'd be just as happy if each essay were cut by 50% - most chapters didn't really sustain my interest to the end.

Full disclosure: my faint generalized lack of enthusiasm for Dr S may stem from nothing more than guilt by association with Robin Williams. I have never denied being shallow.

If you're in the mood for fu...more

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Apr 04, 2008 Cheng rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone.

This is a fascinating book for scientists and non-scientists alike. Dr. Sacks is a very interesting essayist and while he does use medical terms from time to time, he keeps it relatively simple most of the time, even when talking about complex processes of the brain. You will be so amazed at all the things we take for granted because our brain processes the information before we even realized what we perceive as reality has already been processed by our brains, but the patients in these 7 parado...more

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Nov 26, 2011 Cheryl in CC NV rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've known for many years I wanted to read something by Sacks - now I know I want to read everything by him. His focus is on the case histories, well, actually, on the people. Only by getting to know individuals well and comparing their stories to the literature does he bring together theories and share those ideas with us. He doesn't bang us over the head with an agenda. Nice selected bibliography.

A tidbit: "[W]aking consciousness is dreaming - but dreaming constrained by external reality."

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Apr 23, 2013 Robert rated it 4 of 5 stars

If I were to generalize about Oliver Sacks’s collection of essays entitled, An Anthropologist on Mars, I suppose I would say it confronts the astonishing range of human phenomena that are considered abnormal...but may not be.

Most people experience some form of obsessional thinking or compulsive behavior at some point in their lives; most people are inexplicably “good” at certain things and “bad” at others; most people have emotional blind spots and insensitivities; and most people think they see...more

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Jan 05, 2013 Débora rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Este é um dos meus livros favoritos dele, pois as "sete histórias paradoxais" são realmente realmente paradoxos clínicos, que vão contra tudo o que médicos pensam sobre uma pessoa com Tourette, por exemplo.
Ele acompanha intimamente cada um destes casos, visitando-os em suas próprias casa ou mesmo viajando ao lados dele e agindo como um observador. É incrível conhecer a história de vida de pessoas que passaram, ou passam, por distúrbios, por vezes inimagináveis pra gente, mas conseguem adaptar t...more

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Oct 28, 2012 Martin Pribble rated it 5 of 5 stars

In 1995 Oliver Sacks wrote and published a book entitled “An Anthropologist On Mars”, a fascinating series of stories surrounding the curious lives of some of his cases over the years. If you don’t know him, Oliver Sacks is a British born biologist, neurologist, psychologist and best-selling author, made most famous by the portrayal of him by Robin Williams in the film “Awakenings”, a story based on Sacks’ book of the same name. In one of his previous books, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A H...more In 1995 Oliver Sacks wrote and published a book entitled “An Anthropologist On Mars”, a fascinating series of stories surrounding the curious lives of some of his cases over the years. If you don’t know him, Oliver Sacks is a British born biologist, neurologist, psychologist and best-selling author, made most famous by the portrayal of him by Robin Williams in the film “Awakenings”, a story based on Sacks’ book of the same name. In one of his previous books, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat”, Sacks talks about the strange and wonderful places a human mind can arrive at, some horrifying, some sublime and some inspiring, due to illness, injury, or congenital defects in the brain, via a series of short essays. This book is much the same, concentrating on seven cases which show greater oddities in the spectrum of human experience than I had previously been aware.

What I find so interesting in this book is that more than half of these stories place a particular importance on vision; colour-blindness, complete blindness, restoration of sight, sight in the brain, and photographic sight. The first irony here is that Sacks himself suffers from prosopagnosiafollow or “face-blindness”, a disorder in which he cannot “see” faces; that is to say, he cannot make the usual connection of identity by looking at a person’s face, instead depending on auditorial cues, or visual cues about how a person walks, stands, or dresses. The second irony, as he recently announced, is that Sacks himself is steadily going blind, having completely lost his vision in his right eye due to a malignant tumour.

The first case “The Case of the Colour-blind Painter”, a man called simply Mr. I., who suffered a strange and total loss of colour in his vision after a car accident where he suffered what was attributed to a concussion. Mr. I. Was an abstract expressionist artist of some note before the accident, and had an incredible recall of colours, but after the accident, he suffered complete loss of colour, not just like black and white TV, but something described as more akin to the strange way humans look under ultraviolet light, obviously minus the violet; tomatoes looked black, bananas a strange light grey, and human skin took on an almost leaden appearance, and that distressed him greatly in the early parts of his illness. Sacks’ story follows this man’s progress through his sense of great loss, into one of great liberation, finding his feet again as an artist, and learning how to cope with his new-found “disability”.

The second case, “The Last Hippie”, talks of the case of a man who entered a meditational cult after disillusionment with the corporate world of America in the sixties. While he tried to reach enlightenment through meditation and self-sacrifice, he noticed his vision was slowly disappearing. The cult members told him that this was a sign that he was near to reaching total selfless enlightenment, but what they didn’t know as his vision got worse and worse was that a huge tumour had been growing inside his head. Eventually, when this tumour was discovered, it had grown so large that it basically had lobotomised him; his pituitary gland and his frontal lobes were for the greater part destroyed, as was most of his short-term memory. Blind, bald and overweight, he was moved to a hospital for the terminally ill, where Dr Sacks spoke to him. The most interesting aspect of this story was the fact that while he lived his life very much in the present, for his long term memory had been destroyed, he was able to interact with people when prompted or addressed on a very social level, only moments later he would have no memory of this interaction. Ironically, had his tumour been detected earlier, instead of being seen as a sign of religious enlightenment, he could have avoided his lobotomisation.

The other cases in the book include a surgeon with severe Tourette’s syndrome, a man who suffers from incredibly vivid hallucinations and captures these on canvas, a man who had lost his sight as a young boy and had it returned to him as an adult, an autistic boy who could remember and draw any scene he had seen only once and make a detailed representation of this in drawings, and the unusual case of Temple Grandin who, despite being autistic, has achieved the status of being the world’s leading expert on the ethics of animal slaughter for human consumption.

As Dr Sacks points out early in the book, though all these cases involve what we would normally call “disabilities”, what is interesting is not how people cope with these afflictions, but the other unusual side-effects that present themselves as part of coping; be it better dim-light vision with extreme acuity, being unable to see by choice or stress, being able to have a completely focused and steady hand while conducting surgery, photographic memory and recall, or empathy for animals in one who had been termed incapable of empathy at all. All of these cases share an extraordinary, almost super-human, characteristic which surface involving the brain and the mind in quite surprising ways.

Since this book is nearly 20 years old, I have no doubt that many of the discoveries outlined in this book have been updated with explanations, and that the diagnoses of these cases has been expanded upon. This is how science works, constantly updating upon previous models as new information arises. It does however stand as an almost voyeuristic look into the human brain; its quirks, conundrums and coping mechanisms.(less)

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Sep 19, 2012 hannah added it

Shelves: science, for-school

The two wastes of my life that were called my "freshman English courses" in college were just that, but that's mostly based on the fact that my university is only good at sending rovers to Mars and not at identifying or valuing the deficiencies in or development of basic skills like critical reading and writing--and that my classmates were so awful that one of my two teachers actually called them the "box of rocks." That said, my second semester teacher actually had a kickass curriculum, because...more

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May 18, 2012 Owen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Owen by: Kim Guilliams

Shelves: my-library

This was a helpful and interesting book. The author draws on a wealth of research and experience to describe and analyze the life of people with various disabilities or unusual gifts. He focuses on seven people that he has known and studied personally, and he compares their experience and inner worlds with those of others like them.

The cases are of different kinds: a painter who becomes color blind due to a brain injury, a young man who loses a large part of his memory and personality through a...more This was a helpful and interesting book. The author draws on a wealth of research and experience to describe and analyze the life of people with various disabilities or unusual gifts. He focuses on seven people that he has known and studied personally, and he compares their experience and inner worlds with those of others like them.

The cases are of different kinds: a painter who becomes color blind due to a brain injury, a young man who loses a large part of his memory and personality through a brain tumor, a surgeon with Tourette's Syndrome, a man blind for most of his life who has his sight temporarily and partially restored through surgery, a man who paints the town where he grew up from memory, an autistic artist, and an autistic Ph.D. with remarkable accomplishments in various fields who is "bewildered by the complexity of human emotion."

Oliver Sacks shows the startling abilities and accomplishments of these people, as well as their unusual struggles and frustrations. He describes as well as he knows how the perceptions the people have of the world and of themselves. In those cases where the subjects are aware of the ways in which they are different from most other people, he gives their perspective on the benefits and drawbacks of being autistic, being sightless, having Tourette's, etc.

What is interesting is that most of these people see themselves as having a gift where most would label them as being disabled. They develop abilities and insight on life that most people do not share not in spite of the fact that they are blind, or autistic, or have Tourette's, but because of it. This is one thing that makes the difference between a well-adjusted person in such a situation and someone who is unable to cope or even becomes suicidal.

There is one thing in particular that the reader should be cautious of. The author does not believe in the supernatural. He does not believe in a Creator or a personal God who rules the world. This belief is not examined, but is assumed and should not be assumed. Something that is interesting to see, however, is the evidence of some knowledge of God both in the author and in his subjects. There even seems to be, in the case of the autistic Ph.D., a longing for a personal God she does not believe in. She believes that immoral actions have inevitable consequences, and she has an intense longing for some kind of immortality.

This book has "Common Grace" written all over it, so to speak. It is a careful study and thoughtful portrayal of human life and experience. It gives evidence of rebellion against God in the author and in his subjects, but it also leaves a sense that God has not completely abandoned them. The traces of divine revelation, including even some knowledge of the Bible, make this book a valuable read for the critical thinker.(less)

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Apr 15, 2012 Jessica rated it 3 of 5 stars

The first of the case studies, The Case of the Colorblind Painter, covers a painter who, in a car accident, loses his ability not only to see, but also to conceive of color. The world does not become black and white for him, but "dingy" and sallow. The tale tells of his ability to cope with this change in his way of thinking, and how it effects his art.

Subsequent case studies tell of a man who had a brain tumor that robbed him of memory and even to some degree of personality, except when he list...more

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Oct 05, 2011 Derek Davis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Sacks is engaging and deeply concerned about his subject/patients—autistic, Tourette's and brain-damaged in various ways—treating them all with immense humane consideration. He thinks long, hard and deeply about the problems of brain function and its lapses. He is also encyclopedic in his interests and reading. He seems to have devoured virtually every book ever written, and he brings them into his discussions not with personal pride or showiness, but because he thinks they are relevant and you...more

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Mar 15, 2011 Qi Zeng rated it 5 of 5 stars

In the story of the idiot savant artist Stephen Wiltshire, the author wrote this following line:
... the whole visible world flowed through STephen like a river, without making sense, without beining appropriated, without becoming part of him n the least. That though he might retain everthing he saw, in a sense, it was retained as something external, unintegrated, never built on, connected, revised, never influencing or influenced by anthing else ... as in the random-access memory of a computer ....more

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Jul 15, 2009 Daniel Solera rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science, psychology

Oliver Sacks will make you think, and on top of being a great series of remarkable case studies, An Anthropologist on Mars is a fascinatingly profound read.

I had always supposed that a person born blind, upon regaining sight through a modern operation, would represent the ultimate revelatory moment, one that would parallel the release of the prisoners in Plato's "Allegory of the Cave". One of Sacks' case studies is such a person, and without spoiling anything, his situation was not as pleasant....more

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Feb 16, 2013 Greg Brown rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was my first experience of Oliver Sacks, and he's a fascinating writer. You can smell the imprint of The New Yorker on him, dipping in and out of direct reportage and contextual situation. But at the same time, he has a very singular gift: getting inside the phenomenology of cognitive peculiarities. He covers several different subjects—a painter struck color-blind, and finds the world an unappetizing grey; a 50+ year old man who gains sight, assaulted by colors and light, unable to make sen...more

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May 02, 2011 Carolyn F. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: anthology-omnibus, non-fiction

Fascinating stories. I'd be a little leery of going to a surgeon with Tourette's Syndrome, with all the chirping and stuff, but once he started cutting he was supposed to be excellent. I cracked up when the surgeon and the author went rowing and with all the involuntary movements of the surgeon, Oliver Sacks just wanted the boat to finally tip over so he could swim to shore. Also the plane trip was funny. The surgeon also flew planes and Mr. Sacks said they were dipping and diving so much he was...more

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Jul 19, 2010 Kathrina rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nyrb-intro-authors, essays-interviews

If this book ended after the first five case studies, I would have given this four stars, but the last two studies really seemed to drag for me. Actually, I really enjoyed reading about Stephen Wiltshire, as well, and I wish Sacks had confined that study to just him. In fact, I highly recommend googling Stephen Wiltshire, and catching a glimpse of him and his work on the documentary tv show Extraordinary People. Sacks is good at describing Wiltshire's extraordinary talent, but not as good at ill...more

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Jun 26, 2007 Brie rated it 5 of 5 stars

The case studies make the psychological disorders much more interesting and accessible. My favorites were the chapters about the turretic surgeon and the blind man who regains his vision. Reading about his inability to conceive of sight made me think about the likelihood that there are other senses that we might not be able to conceive of. Also I found Temporal Lobe Epilepsy to be so interesting that I bought another book on it.

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Apr 02, 2012 C. Lee McKenzie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Sacks explores disease or affliction as it encourages or requires adaptation and by extension, growth. Each case study (there are seven) in the book details the manner in which patients were transformed by what he calls, "neurological chance." The most interesting to me were the blind man who is given sight, but can't perceive the world around him using his eyes. The painter who suddenly becomes colorblind goes through a period of denial, then rejection of his life's work. Finally, he re imagine...more

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Mar 28, 2012 Marsha rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, health-mind-body

Once again, Professor Sacks brings a probing and humane eye to different diseases, conditions and injuries that afflict that human brain. But more important than the conditions themselves are the people who deal with them, the sufferers, those around them and the doctors who are baffled by, frustrated with and inexorably drawn to getting to the bottom of these mysteries of the brain. While the book can get bogged down in medical jargon and terminology at points, it is mostly easy to understand.

T...more

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Mar 22, 2010 Caitlin Constantine rated it 5 of 5 stars

The theme of this book can be summed up in one single idea, about the plasticity of the human brain, and the way the deficit of disability can be turned into the benefit of compensation. Isn't that such a cool thought? What seems like a disability may ultimately end up a gift.

That's what this whole book is about. Sacks is a neurologist with a bit of Sherlock Holmes mixed in, and he finds himself drawn to some of the most inexplicable cases, like a painter who goes completely colorblind after a c...more The theme of this book can be summed up in one single idea, about the plasticity of the human brain, and the way the deficit of disability can be turned into the benefit of compensation. Isn't that such a cool thought? What seems like a disability may ultimately end up a gift.

That's what this whole book is about. Sacks is a neurologist with a bit of Sherlock Holmes mixed in, and he finds himself drawn to some of the most inexplicable cases, like a painter who goes completely colorblind after a concussion, a young boy with autism who also happens to be an extremely gifted visual artist. (I was very compelled by the story of the man, blind since childhood, who gets his sight back and finds himself profoundly disturbed by the experience, although I also loved reading about his time with Temple Grandin.) He is a writer of enormous sensitivity, and you never get the sense that he has dehumanized his subjects. Rather, what makes his writing so remarkable is his tremendous respect for everyone he writes about, even if they sometimes annoy him (as with one man, who obsessively paints his memories of the ruined Sicilian village in which he was born.)

But Sacks isn't content to just stay on the surface, to just write out case histories of these people. He delves into theory and literature on subjects that, well, I can't speak for anyone else, but subjects that I take for granted, things like color, emotion, memory and perspective. Things that enrich our lives tremendously, but are also such an integral part of our existences that it can be impossible to imagine life without them. I suppose it makes sense that a book about brains would be so thought-provoking, not just because, hey, it's about brains, but because our brains are the centers of our existence, the way we perceive everything that is going on within and without.

I came away from this book with a new appreciation, not just for my own mind, but also for the myriad ways in which people grow and develop, and for all of the strange and beautiful gifts such differences bestow upon us.

Recommended for anyone with an interest in....well, actually, recommended for anyone. (less)

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Nov 23, 2008 Alissa rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-group, nonfiction, 2008

I’ve always wanted to read something by Oliver Sacks (the doctor from Awakenings). I also wanted to read about autism or Temple Grandin. One of the “tales” in the book focuses on Temple, another focuses on prodigies and autism. The other five focus on neurological disorders related to vision.

The first tale, “The Case of the Colorblind Painter” is highly technical and if I were the editor for this book, I would not have placed it first as it almost turned me off the book. However, the rest of the...more

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Feb 14, 2010 Gwen rated it 2 of 5 stars

Skimmed this through looking for a bigger deeper point, other than just the anecdotal illustrations of how disease/disabilities create overcompensation resulting in extraordinary abilities. The boko is about the brain really. Particularly interesting was the oft-seen phenomena of the negative effects of restoring or correcting blindness in those who've not been able-eyed for long a time, if ever. The brain compensates for the lost sense (visual) with more developed tactile, auditory, and other c...more

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Dec 01, 2011 Jason rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science

Seven very interesting stories about various neurological injuries and disorders and the effects they can have on developing an individual's identity or of adapting to a changing environment. The book is probably best known for its final chapter (and title source) which tells of autistic animal science researcher Temple Grandin, but its most interesting section "The Last Hippie" tells of a man who suffered from a brain tumor which altered his mental state, personality and even physical appearanc...more

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Feb 09, 2012 Aldonautico rated it 4 of 5 stars

Oliver Sacks es un neurólogo con talento literario. Su prosa es muy fluida y llena de ejemplos y referencias a ejemplos y autores que refuerzan los casos de sus pacientes. Pero al principio este libro puede llegar a ser difícil si no se poseen conocimientos sobre el tema. La primera vez que intenté leerlo no pude pasar de la primera historia y creo que no es una buena idea incluirla al principio (aunque están ordenadas cronológicamente). Las primeras 50 páginas son decisivas para el lector; a pa...more

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Dec 22, 2009 Teresa B rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, mind-body-connection, science, sci-fi

Absoulutely fascinating case studies by a professor of clinical neurology. Made me think differently about the way I think, and the blessing it is to have a "normal" brain. (I know, I know...Many would dispute that assertion!)

The color-blinded painter, the artist who paints from an obsessively intrusive memory of his childhood home, the autistic and savant prodigies in art and music, the man whose sight was restored after decades of blindness, the pilot/surgeon with Tourette's Syndrome, and the...more

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Nov 23, 2011 Rhonda rated it 4 of 5 stars

Every time I read Oliver Sacks, I'm struck by how his somewhat folksy tone, with a British sensibility, meshes with his technical/medical sensibility to create his very distinctive voice. Sacks wants us to realize that the neurologically-impaired amongst us have real crosses to bear and yet, often, live lives they themselves feel whole in. One of the people we meet in this book is a surgeon with Tourettes. Another is a painter who obsesses, through his art, over the village in Italy where he was...more

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About Oliver Sacks

Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE (born July 9, 1933, London), is a British neurologist residing in the United States, who has written popular books about his patients, the most famous of which is Awakenings, which was adapted into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.

Sacks was the youngest of four children born to a prosperous North London Jewish couple: Sam, a physician, and E...more Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE (born July 9, 1933, London), is a British neurologist residing in the United States, who has written popular books about his patients, the most famous of which is Awakenings, which was adapted into a film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.

Sacks was the youngest of four children born to a prosperous North London Jewish couple: Sam, a physician, and Elsie, a surgeon. When he was six years old, he and his brother were evacuated from London to escape The Blitz, retreating to a boarding school in the Midlands, where he remained until 1943. During his youth, he was a keen amateur chemist, as recalled in his memoir Uncle Tungsten. He also learned to share his parents' enthusiasm for medicine and entered The Queen's College, Oxford University in 1951, from which he received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in physiology and biology in 1954. At the same institution, he went on to earn in 1958, a Master of Arts (MA) and an MB ChB in chemistry, thereby qualifying to practice medicine.

After converting his British qualifications to American recognition (i.e., an MD as opposed to MB ChB), Sacks moved to New York, where he has lived since 1965, and taken twice weekly therapy sessions since 1966.

Sacks began consulting at chronic care facility Beth Abraham Hospital (now Beth Abraham Health Service) in 1966. At Beth Abraham, Sacks worked with a group of survivors of the 1920s sleeping sickness, encephalitis lethargica, who had been unable to move on their own for decades. These patients and his treatment of them were the basis of Sacks' book Awakenings.

His work at Beth Abraham helped provide the foundation on which the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function (IMNF), where Sacks is currently an honorary medical advisor, is built. In 2000, IMNF honored Sacks, its founder, with its first Music Has Power Award. The IMNF again bestowed a Music Has Power Award on Sacks in 2006 to commemorate "his 40 years at Beth Abraham and honor his outstanding contributions in support of music therapy and the effect of music on the human brain and mind".

Sacks was formerly employed as a clinical professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and at the New York University School of Medicine, serving the latter school for 42 years. On 1 July 2007, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons appointed Sacks to a position as professor of clinical neurology and clinical psychiatry, at the same time opening to him a new position as "artist", which the university hoped will help interconnect disciplines such as medicine, law, and economics. Sacks remains a consultant neurologist to the Little Sisters of the Poor, and maintains a practice in New York City.

Since 1996, Sacks is a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature). In 1999, Sacks became a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences. Also in 1999, he became an Honorary Fellow at The Queen's College, Oxford. In 2002, he became Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Class IV—Humanities and Arts, Section 4—Literature).[38] and he was awarded the 2001 Lewis Thomas Prize by Rockefeller University. Sacks has been awarded honorary doctorates from the College of Staten Island (1991), Tufts University (1991), New York Medical College (1991), Georgetown University (1992), Medical College of Pennsylvania (1992), Bard College (1992), Queen's University (Ontario) (2001), Gallaudet University (2005), University of Oxford (2005), Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (2006). He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours. Asteroid 84928 Oliversacks, discovered in 2003 and 2 miles (3.2 km) in diameter, has been named in his honor.
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“Some people with Tourette's have flinging tics- sudden, seemingly motiveless urges or compulsions to throw objects..... (I see somewhat similar flinging behaviors- though not tics- in my two year old godson, now in a stage of primal antinomianism and anarchy)” — 2 people liked it

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An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales

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