Review by Choice Review
Here is another exciting collection of neurological tales from Oliver Sacks! In the same style as his The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1985), Sacks presents us with seven case histories enriched with his poetic interpretations of the forces of mind and brain involved in the production of unusual human conditions. There is a suddenly colorblind painter, a surgeon with Tourette's syndrome, and a hippie trapped in the 1960s by his brain tumor. Prodigies of various types are described to illustrate cases of visual precocities, such as the artist obsessed with re-creating the town of his childhood over and over, a young savant autistic artist, and the cataract patient who could "see but not see." In the final case study, which gives the book its title, Sacks interviews Temple Grandin, an autistic author and college professor. Grandin's own works include (with Margaret M. Scariano) Emergence: Labeled Austistic (1986), a number of agricultural books, and numerous articles in scientific journals. Grandin is a fascinating woman, and it is a delight to read of Sacks's interaction with her. This chapter alone is worth the addition of this work to libraries with medical and psychologically oriented readers. A prolific prodigy himself, Sacks is also known for his book Awakenings (1973) and the film of the same name. Footnotes, illustrations, endnotes, and suggested readings. All levels. L. Gillikin; College of William and Mary
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Neurologist and always popular author Sacks writes about enigmatic neurological conditions with great compassion and suspense. Here in his best book yet, he writes about severe brain damage, restoring the sight of a man blind since birth, and autism.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Among doctors who write with acuity and grace, Sacks (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat) takes a higher place with each successive book. In this provocative collection of previously published essays, the noted neurologist describes his meetings with seven people whose ``abnormalities'' in brain function generate new perspectives on the workings of that organ, the nature of experience and concepts of personality and consciousness. ``It's not gentle,'' notes Canadian surgeon Carl Bennett of Tourette's syndrome; Bennett's compulsive lungings, tics and speech patterns are stilled when he is in the operating room and moderated, Sacks observes firsthand from the passenger seat, while Bennett is flying his Cessna Cardinal. The broad effects and differing degrees of autism are probed in his conversations and observations, over many years, with Stephen Wiltshire, an autistic British artist-prodigy, and his visit with Temple Grandin, an animal behavior specialist. Writing with eloquent particularity and compassionate respect, Sacks enlarges our view of the nature of human experience. Illustrations. 100,000 first printing; BOMC selection; author tour; Random House AudioBook (ISBN 0-679-43956-0, $17). (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
According to Sacks (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, LJ 2/15/86), developmental defects, diseases, and disorders play a paradoxical role in human lives. Ravenous and destructive on the one hand, they also bring about unexpected growth and evolution of the extremely adaptive nervous system as it is forced to develop new paths and new ways of doing things. Sacks offers seven portraits exemplifying the "creative" potential of disease, including an artist who loses all sense of color in a car accident but finds a new sensibility and creative power in black and white; a surgeon consumed by the compulsive tics of Tourette's Syndrome unless he is operating; and an autistic Ph.D. who cannot interpret the simplest social exchange between humans but has built a career out of her intuitive understanding of animal behavior. Taking leave of his white coat and the hospital environment, Sacks explores his subjects closely. True to his past work, he offers compelling stories told with the cognizance of a clinician and the heart and compassion of a poet. He also includes a superbly annotated bibliography for further study. This insightful and inspirational collection is essential for all libraries. [BOMC selection.]-David R. Johnson, Arnold LeDoux Lib., Louisiana State Univ., Eunice (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
In seven case histories, Sacks (The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, 1985, etc.) once again presents the bizarre both clinically and lyrically, challenging assumptions about the landscape of human reality. The fascination of Dr. Sacks's approach to neurological disorder is his attempt to empathize with patients whose realities can't be described in normal terms. He dares to wonder how pathology can shape consciousness and the concept of self. To him, a patient is not a broken machine, but an inhabitant of an unfamiliar world. And sometimes those alien worlds are more hospitable than the one we are used to. After an accident, a successful artist (referred to as Mr. I) loses the ability to experience color: Not only can't he see it, he can't dream it, remember it, or even imagine it. After a period of extreme depression and uncertainty, he comes to think of his condition as ``a strange gift'' that allows him to experience the physical world in a unique way. Virgil, whose sight is restored after a lifetime of blindness, is crushed by the bewilderment of vision; his brain has never learned to see, but his comfortable life as a blind person is irrevocably over. And then there is Temple Grandin, an animal-science professor and a high-functioning autistic who has only learned the rules of interpersonal relationships by memorizing them like complex math problems, though her empathy with animals is astonishing. Occasionally, Sacks provides too much technical detail--long riffs on the mechanics of vision, for instance--but these are minor distractions. (The essays have been previously published in the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books.) Readers may come to Sacks's work as voyeurs, but they will leave it with new and profound respect for the endless labyrinth of the human mind. (12 pages illustrations, 4 in color, not seen) (First printing of 100,000; Book-of-the-Month Club main selection; author tour)
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