Oliver Sacks

“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 Sacks
No writer has succeeded in capturing the medical and human drama of illness as honestly and as eloquently as Oliver Sacks. ...

In this work the author 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...

"Two weeks before his death, Oliver Sacks outlined the contents of The River of Consciousness, the last book he would oversee. The best-selling author of On the Move, Musicophilia, and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Sacks is known for his illuminating case histories about people living with neurological conditions at the far borderlands of human experience. But his grasp of science was not restricted to neuroscience or medicine; he was fascinated...

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 Review

Like The...

"A groundbreaking book that upends conventional thinking about autism and suggests a broader model for acceptance, understanding, and full participation in society for people who think differently"--

When Oliver Sacks was twelve years old, a perceptive schoolmaster wrote in his report: “Sacks will go far, if he does not go too far.” It is now abundantly clear that Sacks has never stopped going. From its opening pages on his youthful obsession with motorcycles and speed, On the Move is infused with his restless energy. As he recounts his experiences as a young neurologist in the early 1960s, first in California, where he struggled

...

In his most extraordinary book, "one of the great clinical writers of the 20th century" (The New York Times) recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of...

Father and son find a connection through the music that embodied the generation gap of the 1960s. The soundtrack features the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Crosby Stills and Nash, and many more.

Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) is a shy research physician who uses an experimental drug to "awaken" the catatonic victims of a rare disease. The awakening of the first patient proves a rebirth for the doctor, too, as the patient reveals life's simple but sweet pleasures to the introverted doctor. Encouraged by Leonard's stunning recovery, Sayer administers the drug to other patients.