Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating
Review: The first thing I did after reading this book was to hop back onto Amazon.con and order "Awakenings" and "An Anthropolgist on Mars." This book was recommended by one of my philosophy professors in college about six years ago. Well, it took me six years to pick it up, and I don't regret the decision. As a complete layperson, my eyes were opened to what a complex piece of machinery the brain is. Sack's personal perspective on these patients disorders is what takes this interesting material and makes it fascinating reading. The only problem I had with this book was that I was disappointed to see most every chapter end. I wanted to know more about most every case. I only rank it 4 instead of 5 for that reason (It could have been more in-depth) and a couple of the cases were simply mildly interesting rather than mind-bending. It's almost imcrompehensible to perceive the world and one's self in the same manner as some of these unfortunate people. I was especially intrigued by one of the questions Sack's brings up concerning the case history discussed in the chapter "The Lost Mariner." A man can remember nothing for more than a few seconds. His entire life, all of his experiences are gone almost as soon as they are past. "He is a man without a past (or future), stuck in a constantly changing, meaningless moment," Sacks writes. Sacks then ponders the question that will stop your heart: "Does he have a soul?" If you have ever been bothered by the question of the spiritual nature of man, Sacks --who stops well short of reaching any theological conclusions -- will disturb you with this material. From that standpoint, he is brilliant at informing by simply forcing the reader to ask questions of his or her self...questions which Sack's himself admits even he has no clue as to the answers. This book could change your perspective on life, or simply entertain you as an interesting novelty. In any case, I very highly recommend it...can't wait to get into "Anthropologist" next.
Rating: 
Summary: Still instructive, still engaging
Review: Decades after its original publication, Dr. Sacks' bestseller remains a fascinating exploration of neurologic disease. I assign readings from this wonderful book in my graduate neuroanatomy class to provide clinical perspective to the study of the anatomy and function of the nervous system. Although written in clear, straightforward language (you do NOT need to be studying neuroanatomy to understand this book!), Dr. Sacks' tales do not sacrifice accuracy and detail for entertainment; he does the reader the rare courtesy of assuming that the fascinating world of the nervous system is well within the grasp of everyone. I confess that I enjoy The Man Who Mistook His Wife more than most of Dr. Sacks' subsequent books. The vignettes are brief, and the reader can read in short bursts without losing the narrative thread. Dr. Sacks also provides a bibliography, a fabulous resource for readers who would like to satisfy further the curiosity that Dr. Sacks' tales are sure to inspire.
Rating:
Summary: A quiet gem of a book
Review: Oliver Sacks takes us on a visit to various patients with a broad array of neurological diseases. His prose breathes quiet dignity into the actions of even the most bizarre behaviors. From Tourette's syndrome sufferers to those who have lost great chunks of their memory and past, he is unfailingly optimistic and, yes, kind. He almost forces one to abandon harsh judgments about the quality of life of these people and to look at and think about the pleasures and contributions they make.
I think the most touching chapter is when he delineates the lives and problems of those with what is loosely termed limited or drastically small mental abilities. He makes you stop and wonder if, indeed, their lives are not only valuable but also pleasurable and worthwhile.
A very thought provoking book.
Rating:
Summary: Compassion and hope for those in neuronal hell
Review: A surgeon with Turrette's Syndrome. A man whose recent memory is obliterated every five minutes. A man who ceases to recognize objects in their completeness -- faces, gloves, his wife -- but only by adding up the sum of their parts. A man who no longer sees his leg as part of his own body, and is found on the floor after throwing this "foreign" object out of bed. Oliver Sacks uses each of these stories to illustrate the way our brains operate by means of studying those who have lost mental functioning due to accident or disease.
Sacks' stories are often poignant, and are portraits not only of the abstract workings of the mind, but of the people who must bear these disabilities. What is it like to live as a person whose last remembered self image is decades old? What happens when he looks into a mirror and sees himself as a wrinkled grayhair? Can such a person, with no ability to see life as a developing continuity, be said to have a soul? Does nature provide compensations? Or is life an existential nightmare ended only by merciful death?
Sacks has a gift for making extraordinary internal realities accessible to the non-technician. His deep humanity and compassion, evident on every page, help the reader share and care for individuals with deficits I pray never to experience.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" (A mouthful!) is a series of essays that will undoubtedly prove helpful to future neurologists witnessing some novel cases in their practice. It is a collection of intriguing and mind-provoking stories of the mind. Some of the "tales" actually made me apprehensive of my future and my occasional case of mild amnesia. You'll fine these cases interesting even if you've never read anything on neurology, or if you know little of brain anatomy and physiology. It's a great book. Actually, it's splendid!
I particularly found the story of "Jimmie" very interesting and touching at the same time (Chapter 2). Indeed, there is more to a human being than just memory. There is also "feeling, will, sensibility, moral being," and other intangibles. ALL of the stories were really just fascinating. Dr. Sacks also writes in a beautiful, easy, and almost poetic style - which makes the book a relatively fast read.
People have likened the brain to a computer at times, but after reading the book, you begin to realize that the central nervous system is really much more complex and complicated than a mere computer. Dr. Sacks does away with all the scientific and medical jargon that often complicates comprehension. This is why this book is not only readable, but also enjoyable. Once I read the first case, I was hooked! I couldn't put the book down. All the cases are like a puzzle - a fascinating labyrinth. I was happy to discover "proprioception" and many other things that were not part of my knowledge before. Some of the cases might even tear you eyes, or enchant you. Some are downright risible!
There is not a single story in this book that didn't make me say "wow!" I applaud Dr. Sacks. It's a job well done.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Food for Thought
Review: This is a book where every twenty minutes or so you will find yourself pausing and looking up just to think about what you just read. It's a book that I think just about anybody would enjoy. It's never boring because Sacks has a great talent for taking complex medical issues and bringing them down to earth in a way that a layperson can understand without struggling. Also, the book is laid out in vignettes so that just at the point one might find themselves getting bored, he moves on to a new neurological dysfunction. It sounds terrible to say, but in a way, this book is really just a very sophisticated freak-show. But Sacks is no P.T. Barnum. Sacks portrays these anecdotes with great humanity. His thoughts on the subjects of these stories, the disorders and their sufferers, border on the spiritual in magnitude. He explores these issues with such a great awe and respect for the mysteries of physical life, that it feels as if one is walking along with him as tour guide on a journey through the stars. Just a terrific read and a book that feels great to have on your shelf.
Rating:
Summary: Hang on to your right hemisphere!
Review: This is one of the most entertaining and thought provoking books I've read in a while. Oliver Sacks has done a marvelous job of illustrating just how mysterious and tenuous our perception of the world is by relating stories about patients who have suffered some kind of injury to the right hemisphere of their brains. Why the "right" hemisphere? As Sacks explains, the left hemisphere has a fairly comprehensible role; it seems to follow rules. When it does not function appropriately, the consequences are reasonably predictable. "Indeed, the entire history of neurology and neuropsychology can be seen as a history of the investigation of the left hemisphere." In contrast, the right hemisphere has been something of an enigma, and is consequently called the 'minor' hemisphere. But, "it is the right hemisphere which controls the crucial powers of recognizing reality which every living creature must have in order to survive." For example, the right hemisphere is responsible for "proprioception", which allows us to feel our bodies as "proper to us"; that they belong to us. This is so basic that it is difficult to even imagine what it would be like to have impaired proprioception. Sacks is keenly aware of this challenge; in a sense, the entire book is an attempt to give us a glimpse into such an incomprehensible world. Sacks quotes Wittgenstein:, "The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something because it is always before one's eyes.)" Those things that are most basic, most obvious, have a deeply mysterious foundation in the brain. One can begin to appreciate this when one considers those unfortunate individuals who have lost some of these basic perceptions due to injury or illness. As Sacks points out in the introduction, "It is not only difficult, it is impossible, for patients with certain right-hemisphere syndromes to know their own problems... And it is singularly difficult, even for the most sensitive observer, to picture the inner state, the 'situation', of such patients, for this is almost unimaginably remote from anything he himself has ever known." Sacks presents detailed and compassionate accounts of numerous patients whose worlds are indeed unimaginably remote from our own. He tells us of patients who have difficulty distinguishing between people and inanimate objects, those who have perfect "vision" yet cannot discern the purpose of an object without tactile feedback, those who fail to recognize their own limbs as belonging to them, and those who have lost fundamental spatial concepts, such as the distinction between left and right. One of the most intriguing cases that Sacks presents is that of a woman who had "totally lost the idea of 'left', both with regard to the world and her own body," a condition known as hemi-inattention. To this woman, everything in her left visual field simply ceased to exist, in analogy to the way each of us fills the blind spots in our visual field. This unfortunate woman would eat half her lunch (that on the right side of her tray) and was incapable of turning to the left (since left did not exist) to discover what remained. In time, she learned to turn herself around, always to the right, until she found the rest of her lunch. This book is not only engrossing, it is challenging; it forces one to acknowledge that what we take as so plainly obvious about the world is intimately tied to basic brain function. Oliver Sacks demonstrates beautifully that the brain is still deeply mysterious, particularly in how it creates our sense of reality. There are profound implications here for those interested in psychology and philosophy. It's a great read.
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