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The Mind's Eye

by Oliver Sacks (Goodreads Author)

3.81 of 5 stars 3.81 · rating details · 3,441 ratings · 418 reviews

In Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks explored music and the brain; now, in The Mind's Eye, he writes about the myriad ways in which we experience the visual world: how we see in three dimensions; how we recognize individual faces or places; how we use language to communicate verbally; how we translate marks on paper into words and paragraphs, even how we represent the world inter...more

Hardcover, 263 pages

Published November 5th 2010 by Picador USA (first published 2010)

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Jul 03, 2011 Ellie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library, non-fiction, special-needs, interesting

Like The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales, The Mind's Eye is a collection of case studies by neurologist Oliver Sacks (who is perhaps best known for his bringing Temple Grandin, an extremely successful woman with autism to the attention of the public and for the film with Robin Williams based on his book Awakenings).

Sacks is both a gifted writer and a gifted clinician who brings a warmth, compassion and genuine interest to people who have various disabilities as the r...more

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Nov 19, 2010 Cindy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, brainzz, own, ebook, 2010-best-reads

Mind's Eye is classic Sacks. It's a collection of essays with a focus on case studies. This time they were loosely based around the theme of the Mind's Eye - or how our perceptions of the world translate to imagery in the mind. As usual, he looks at people who have some sort of injury, illness or deficit to tell us about the normal functioning processes.

Sacks has never shied away from including his own illnesses and problems in his books. (To wit: A Leg to Stand On and Migraine.) This time felt...more Mind's Eye is classic Sacks. It's a collection of essays with a focus on case studies. This time they were loosely based around the theme of the Mind's Eye - or how our perceptions of the world translate to imagery in the mind. As usual, he looks at people who have some sort of injury, illness or deficit to tell us about the normal functioning processes.

Sacks has never shied away from including his own illnesses and problems in his books. (To wit: A Leg to Stand On and Migraine.) This time felt brutally personal as he shared both his life-long problem with prosopagnosia (face blindness), and his recent battle with a melanoma tumor on his retina. The latter altered then robbed him of his sight, and we see the normally upbeat the resilient doctor become alarmed, depressed, anxious and doubting. His Melanoma Diary is included verbatim, describing his thoughts as his vision changed day-to-day through the cancer treatments.

The last chapter, which was also titled "Mind's Eye", is very detailed, filled with citations, and had more of a scholarly and philosophical tone than the other case-study/memoir chapters. However, it really brought together the deeper themes in the book: the difference between perception and mental imagery. I suspect this chapter has been published elsewhere before inclusion in the book.

One of the best things I took away from the book is the difference between people who are strong visual imagers and people who do a more abstract type of mental imagery. In that last chapter, he discusses quite a few cases of blind people who have either maintained a very strong sense of visual imagery despite their deficits. He contrasts those with cases where the blind person has completely shifted their mental imagery towards aural, texture, and more abstract imagery. (It turns out Sacks admits he has almost no capabilities to pull up mental visual images, and he attributes some of this to his prosopagnosia.)

It took me a long time to think about the differences, but I think there are strong parallels with my fellow physicists. At work, I have always been a very strong visual, "graph it" person -- I think best about a physical relationship or concept if I can imagine the graph or other physical representation. My husband, at the other extreme, likes to think much more abstractly in equations, and rarely graphs things in his head. As I've chatted with other folks over the years, physicists tend to fall into one or the other category - and I think this is what Sacks is talking about in the last chapter.
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Jan 01, 2011 Petra X rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: psycho-neurology-crime

I like all Sacks' books about the neurological problems and adjustments of the people whose stories he tells. However, when he comes to relating his own problems, that's another matter. He goes into far too much detail as though he had confused his audience - most of us are neither personal fans of Oliver Sacks himself (rather than his work) nor are we neurologists ourselves. We just got sucked into neurology-as-a-popular-science by the brilliant Awakenings, or the film of that book starring Rob...more

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Nov 19, 2012 Marfita rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: anthropology-etc

Reading Dr. Sacks's books makes me hypochondriac. I now worry about my visual cortex - but I'm not as far around the bend as when I read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat & Other Clinical Tales.
Neurology is endlessly fascinating and Sacks makes it accessible. His work has given me insights into brain function that turn my previous notions upside-down. Before reading about Temple Grandin I would have insisted that people needed words to think. I'm pretty sure that I use words to think,...more

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Apr 21, 2012 Louise rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: neuro-psychology, non-fiction-other

Around a decade ago I first read 'The man who mistook his wife as a hat', which really sparked my interest in the brain, what happens when something goes wrong with it, and what that can be like for the person having that experience. Oliver Sacks beautifully captured all of those aspects and now - perhaps in part thanks to that book - I am working as a neuropsychologist. Thus I had high hopes for this book. In the first few case examples I slipped comfortably back into the familiar Sacks style -...more

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Mar 09, 2012 Deb rated it 4 of 5 stars

*Opening the mind's eye*

In _The Mind's Eye_, Oliver Sacks explores the fascinating relationship between vision, recognition, and perception, and the amazing ways that the brain--and spirit--adapt to disorders of vision. The first part of the book does so through fascinating case studies (that give us a look into remarkable ways people respond to vision disorders like aphasia, agnosia, and prosopagnosia), the second through Sacks' personal experience with ocular melanoma, and the third part throu...more

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Feb 25, 2012 Cecelia Hightower rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: betty

I just finished reading "The Mind's Eye" by Oliver Sacks. I have read one or two other books by this author who lives in New York and is a practicing physician, author of ten books, a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center and the first Columbia University Artist (whatever that may mean).

He gives case studies of persons who have lost their sight and learn new ways to accommodate their "seeing" with other "senses" and the powerful possibilities of the human br...more

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Jan 04, 2012 Bev rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: kindle

Bill Clinton says that Hillary's mother was reading this book at the time of her death so I decided to see if I could through it alive! This book, by the author of "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" is a fascinating look at various visual anomalies and how the body copes with them. I devoured the first two chapters. The first was about people who lose the ability to read, whose brains take letters and turn them into undecipherable scribbles. This is a condition Paul had before he died and...more

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Dec 14, 2011 Abria Mattina rated it 3 of 5 stars

Originally reviewedhere.

Oliver Sack's The Mind's Eye is a very enlightening read. Each chapter focuses on a different patient with [a] unique perceptual condition(s), interwoven with vignettes about the history of neurology. First, readers are introduced to Lillian Kallir, a musical prodigy and concert pianist whose ability to read music and recognize objects dwindled as she aged. Next, a stroke victim with global aphasia--the inability to articulate words and understand the speech of others--wh...more

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Jun 25, 2011 Trevor rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: psychology, science

I listened to this one as a talking book. There were many, many times when I nearly stopped listening to it. The problem was that Sacks himself didn’t read very much of the book – his eye troubles have made reading difficult for him. By far the best parts of this talking book were when he was doing the reading. You would nearly think that the producers of this audio book picked the person to read the other bits of the book as a way to convince Sacks he should just do the whole damn thing himself...more

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May 22, 2011 Jafar rated it 3 of 5 stars

Oliver Sacks writes great books about people with rare and strange neurological disorders. He then uses these case studies to understand the inner workings of the human brain. This is well-known by now. What I didn’t know about Sacks is that he himself suffers from one such rare and strange neurological disorder: prosopagnosia. Prosopagnosia is the inability to recognize faces. Sacks can’t recognize anyone, not even close friends and associates with whom he has worked for many years - not even h...more

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Apr 30, 2011 cat rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 100-in-2011

2011 Book 46/100

I have read many (if not most) of Oliver Sacks' books about the medical mysteries of neurology. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat was one of my favorites, and this new endeavor ranks near that 1985 hit for me. I was relieved, because his last book, Musicophilia, bored me to tears - an unwelcome and totally unexpected reaction to one of my favorite science authors. With this book, which explores "the stories of people who are able to navigate the world and communicate with ot...more 2011 Book 46/100

I have read many (if not most) of Oliver Sacks' books about the medical mysteries of neurology. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat was one of my favorites, and this new endeavor ranks near that 1985 hit for me. I was relieved, because his last book, Musicophilia, bored me to tears - an unwelcome and totally unexpected reaction to one of my favorite science authors. With this book, which explores "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", as his website says, he returns to familiar territory, but adds his own story.

It was surprising to have so many of the chapters reference his own experience of his own eye cancer and the bizarre and disconcerting effects of losing vision to one side - and then expounds on that experience in a whole chapter devoted to his plight. It was slightly disconcerting to have him suddenly be the 'mystery' that he is exploring in his book, though the journals that he kept from 2005-2009 certainly made that chapter one of the richest in detailing the day to day tribulations of vision loss and the ways that our brains compensate. One of my favorite stories was of how his own visual cortex began to “fill in” his blind spot with imagery borrowed from the parts of the scene he can see. The ever resilient brain, he remarks, “does not just fill in color, it fills in patterns too, and I enjoyed experimenting with my own scotoma, testing its powers and limitations.” A brick wall looks like a red blob from nearby, but as he pulls away, the grain and grid fill in perfectly where he otherwise has a blind spot. A complex patterned rug works best of all, filling in slowly from the sides and creating an illusion that he is seeing the whole rug.

If you'd like to see what his writing is all about, here is a link to a New Yorker story that is taken from his work on this book. Enjoy!

http://www.truncheon.net/newyorker/20...(less)

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Apr 14, 2011 Kirsti rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, science

I'm always impressed by the author's compassion for his patients. One of them has perfect vision but also has a brain disorder that means she can no longer recognize specific objects. She can see an apple, but she isn't sure if it's an apple or a tomato or a pepper. She can see a toy elephant, but it might be a toy dog or a toy giraffe. But she claims to do well in and around her neighborhood. To test this, Sacks takes her grocery shopping . . . and to make sure she doesn't get confused about wh...more

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Mar 13, 2011 Laurie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I’ve been a fan of Dr. Sacks’ writing for many, many years, admiring his ability to explain in detail the workings- and malfunctions- of the brain without ever losing sight of the fact that said brain is a part of a human being. No one is every ‘the stroke in room 213’ to Sacks. In this book, the author takes on visual problems.

The eyes are merely one part of what makes up vision. They are lenses that gather information to send to the brain. It’s the brain that makes sense of the images it gets...more I’ve been a fan of Dr. Sacks’ writing for many, many years, admiring his ability to explain in detail the workings- and malfunctions- of the brain without ever losing sight of the fact that said brain is a part of a human being. No one is every ‘the stroke in room 213’ to Sacks. In this book, the author takes on visual problems.

The eyes are merely one part of what makes up vision. They are lenses that gather information to send to the brain. It’s the brain that makes sense of the images it gets, and it’s here that so much can go wrong. People who have perfect eyesight lose their ability to make sense of letters, and so can write but not read; people can see faces but not tell one from another; a musician can lose their ability to read music but still perform from memory or learn new music by ear. One can even lose their ability to tell what objects are when one sees them. Sometimes these afflictions are temporary; sometimes they are chronic; sometimes they are progressive.

Knowing this, Sacks is understandably upset when he suddenly discovers a scotoma (a blank spot) in his vision. It turns out he has an ocular melanoma, a cancer of the eye. While ocular melanomas are rarely fatal like the skin type, they can still do a lot of damage. Sacks’ tumor was in a bad spot; radiation therapy, while it got rid of the tumor, actually made his vision worse. Suddenly, the author had no stereo vision and no vision on one side. Not only could he not see things on that side of his body due to problems in his eye, but he no longer thought about the possibility of things being on that side of his body because of how his brain reacted to this. People appearing out of his blind spot still startle him after several years of having this condition. He does not think to look in the blind spot area for an item he has lost sight of. This, despite his vast knowledge of the brain and how it works!

This kind of book always makes one away of how scarily fragile the brain is, but some of his essays show how resilient it is, too. The people in these tales find ways of accommodating. Sometimes other senses come to stand in, as a person who loses their sight becomes more aware of sounds and touch. Sometimes their memory for images becomes stronger. Sometimes they learn a new way to communicate. The brain is plastic and can lay down new pathways, even in older people.
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Feb 07, 2011 Kathleen Hagen added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011-audio-books, 2011-nonfiction

The Mind’s Eye, by Oliver Sacks, parts narrated by the author, and parts by another narrator, produced by Random House Audio, downloaded from audible.com.

First, Oliver Sacks, now in his late 70’s, because of his own visual problems, introduces each character, but only narrates his own story, the experience of losing the sight in his right eye because of an inoperable tumor. We have six different stories here, including his own. One is of a person with face blindness, or prosapagnosia, a conditio...more

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Feb 05, 2011 John rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I feel a kinship with Oliver Sacks. We are both physicians, both intellecutally curious about the mind/brain connection, both caring toward our patients, and both cognizant of the power of story. And so I looked forward to reading his new book The Mind's Eye.

In his trademark style, Sacks mixes patient vignettes, explanation of neurobiology, and personal philosophical musings into science edutainment. The theme of this book is vision, from the eye to the brain to the mind. He gives five of his f...more

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Dec 16, 2010 Alicia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010-books-read

This is a book about various people that Dr. Sacks has helped throught his career, one of them being himself. I had never heard of many types of these neurological eye problems. The idea of going blind, yet your eyes still functioning was a completely new thought. The chapter on difficult recognizing faces, including your own was really intriguing. The most amazing part is not just the various cases and the different diseases, but how the people coped and overcame their problems. Then Dr. Sacks...more

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Dec 04, 2010 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science

Sacks, Oliver. THE MIND’S EYE. (2010). ****. This latest in Sacks’ casebook studies concentrates on vision, primarily as it is controlled and/or interpreted by the brain. He examines in detail how people who are vision deprived, in some way, are able to navigate the world and communicate with others in spite of losing what most of us consider to be an indispensible sense. This work includes studies of a variety of his patients, including Lilian, a concert pianist who becomes unable to read music...more Sacks, Oliver. THE MIND’S EYE. (2010). ****. This latest in Sacks’ casebook studies concentrates on vision, primarily as it is controlled and/or interpreted by the brain. He examines in detail how people who are vision deprived, in some way, are able to navigate the world and communicate with others in spite of losing what most of us consider to be an indispensible sense. This work includes studies of a variety of his patients, including Lilian, a concert pianist who becomes unable to read music and is eventually unable to recognize everyday abjects. We also meet Sue, who, although a neurobiologist, has never been able to see in three dimensions. Later, there is Pat, who after years of isolation, reinvents herself as an outgoing and highly social member of her community, despite the fact that she has aphasia and cannot utter a sentence. Another example, which I had heard of before, was that of Howard Engle, the Canadian author of the Benny Cooperman mystery series. He was suddenly deprived of the ability to read after a stroke, but had to find a way to go on with his life and his career. What was surprising to me was the story of Sacks himself. In his later years, he was stricken with eye cancer, and was ultimately afflicted with the loss of vision to one side (peripheral). All of these people were able to adapt successfully to their loss, either through an increase in the sensitivity of other senses or through practice of alternative ways of compensating for them. Ultimately, Sacks tries to show the progress made in the knowledge of what centers of the brain are responsible for vision and its interpretations, but still bemoans the true lack of knowledge of how things really work inside our heads. He manages to point out areas of needed research in brain studies that are clearly missing and need to be conducted. Much of this research, however, requires tools that haven’t been invented yet. In all, this is a fascinating look at the mind and how it works. Recommended.(less)

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Nov 17, 2010 Michelle rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorite, must-buy, non-fiction

When I first saw the cover of this book, I thought it was called "O, Liver Sacks". It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to figure out it was called "The Mind's Eye". I loved the case studies in this book, and most of all how the people were portrayed as humans, not patients. My favorite chapter was probably the one on Lillian. The chapter on Oliver Sacks's eye cancer was really depressing, but it was still good. I definitely want to read more of this author.

Favorite parts:
"Lillian c...more

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Nov 14, 2010 Charlene rated it 3 of 5 stars

Reading this book in my mid-50s, I realize that I'm bringing much of my own life experiences to it and re-acting to the stories instead of considering them from a more scientifc or detached perspective. The new ideas about the plasticity of the brain fascinate me. Case studies though are hard -- those are stories of real people, greatly affected by brain accidents or diseases. The second chapter, Recalled to Life, was about a woman with severe aphasia after a stroke which is what my own mother h...more

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Jun 02, 2011 Roxy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I saw this book lying in the library and its cover appealed to me. When I started reading the back I thought I'd be reading a book about the eyes and how they work and maybe some experiences by other people. I myself can't see depth and since recently I've been trying to get more information about that subject. I hoped to get something like that from this book.

I soon found out that the book was something totally different than what I expected. The book handles a couple of stories of Sacks' pati...more

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Feb 02, 2011 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

Even though I'd read some of these cases already in The New Yorker, I still enjoyed this book, especially the chapter on the woman with strabismus who trains herself to see stereoscopically. I'd be quite interested in trying this myself (I have strabismus and amblyopia and am not sure whether I can see depth, but I think in the sense that's being discussed here, I can't).

Even if none of the conditions discussed here have personal resonance, though, most readers would still enjoy these chapters,...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Ru rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As seen on "60 Minutes" in a story about "face blindness" - not being able to distinguish between people - at all - based on sight alone. The book is not solely about that particular condition, however. In contrast to "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," Dr. Sacks details several visual disorders here with a higher degree of seriousness. One can't help but feel for Dr. Sacks himself, as he maintains a harrowing diary of his own cancer of the eye, and what it's like to lose partial vision ev...more

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Jan 30, 2011 Courtney Johnston rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science, own

I have this little mental game I play with myself to pass the time - when I'm walking or driving by myself, usually. If it had a name, it would probably be called something lame, like 'Choices'. In it, two or three options for a particular choice are available, and I have to justify to myself why I pick the option I do. It's like debating with myself, I gues, and it goes something like this:

Palmerston North, Wanganui, or Hamilton? (Hamilton)
Taller or thinner? (Taller)
Live to 70 or live to 80? (8...more

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Jan 26, 2011 Lisa Eggers rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book truely made me appreciate my brain and my eyes and their ability to work in tandem. HOWEVER, being a serious hypochondriac, this book also made me extreamly nervous about losing said ability due to a possible future stroke, eye cancer, or what-have-you (after reading The Family Who Couldn't Sleep, a book about prion diseases, i.e. mad cow, my relationship with meat, namely beef, has been permanently altered). Oliver Sacks writes in layman's terms and his case studies are all unique and...more

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Jan 08, 2011 David Everling rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fascinating stories about vision, its fragility and its capacity. The words are colorfully descriptive as Sacks tries to convey the disposition of the people and the visual anomalies they are experiencing (including a large chapter about Sacks' own loss of vision), and I only wish that I could somehow go beyond and sample the experience of their vision myself. In some cases I can come pretty close (could find a stereoscope, for example), but for some reason this book left me feeling wanting for...more

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Nov 14, 2010 Siria rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, science

This is a really interesting exploration of vision and cognitive function through the case study of six individuals—including a concert pianist who retains her sight, but loses her ability to read the score; a neurobiologist who acquires the ability to see in three dimensions, rather than two, comparatively late in life; a writer who finds a way of continuing his life's work though he can no longer read; and the author's own battle with cancer of the eye. Sacks' writing is clear and focused, but...more

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May 03, 2011 Kathryn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

This book is the latest from one of my favorite authors, British neurologist Oliver Sacks. In this work, he treats not so much instances of brain deficits, as how people have adjusted to whatever brain deficit fate has given them. (He includes himself among these people; on December 17, 2005, he developed a tumor in his right eye, and one whole chapter is taken from the journal he kept of his experiences and treatment.) I liked this book; alas, from me that is faint praise, for I normally love D...more

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Mar 24, 2011 Anne rated it 3 of 5 stars

I am fascinated by neurological disorders - and the idea that because they are often so difficult to diagnose, people often think other things are going on, like failing eyesight or general insanity. Alas, I am not a very scientificly minded person (brain disorder, I guess), so I really appreciate the accessible way that Sacks writes his books - with colorful characters and interesting anecdotes. The Mind's Eye presents individuals who have suffered the loss of one of their senses - from the se...more

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Feb 02, 2011 Judy rated it 4 of 5 stars

I got this one for Christmas and started reading a few days later. Each chapter is the story of one patient who is coping with difficulties in vision either from a problem with the eye or with the brain.

Oliver Sacks manages to write about scientific research and make it so accessible. Further, he writes about how the real people, who have these rare brain defects, manage to cope in their day to day lives.

It's a fascinating read. There is one chapter written about vision problems that Sacks himse...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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