On the Move: A Life by Oliver Sacks (2015-04-28)

Sacks' reflection on his life is a beautifully written book. He narrates his journey from London to Los Angeles to New York. Despite characterizing himself as painfully shy and a bit disorganized, he had a remarkable life, with weightlifting records, adventurous travel, and incisive clinical insights. I've always liked his short pieces rather than his longer New Yorker articles, but the book has gotten me interested in looking at some of his other books. Like Sacks, I've often found old books and clinical cases more valuable than a lot of published research and quite often the latest science tends to confirm what a competent clinician always has known. Many reviews seek him to be more expressive or go into more detail about his personal life, but it seems pretty clear that coming of age where his sexuality was illegal and clearly condemned by his mother was not an auspicious start and his relationships often had bittersweet ends. Others have done more with circumstances like Sacks, but many have done even less. Sacks is modest about his accomplishments and understands his rather odd legacy; he defends his decisions without defensiveness and clearly had a life that has been alternately frustrating and rewarding. It was nice to see that his later years found happy companionship, as well as opportunities to travel and see the world. It's a wonderful book about a very interesting man who has given as an enriching life.

I enjoy everything that Oliver Sacks writes. This book covers his life in his 20's when he was making decisions about who he was going to be as a person and what direction he would take in his medical career. We are lucky he has decided to write about it all and share it with us.

Oliver Sacks has a facility with language that allows him to describe his roles in neuroscience discovery and collaboration with the extraordinary intellects of his times that is honest, totally absorbing and quite without braggadacio. His ability to live an imperfect life while contributing so much to his fields of interest is a measure of a person with great insight and self honesty. I marvel at the number of lives this remarkable man must have touched. This is one of the most satisfying autobiographies I have ever read.

Oliver Sacks may have surprised you in the past. He will again, in this case study autobiography. Try on brilliant, secure, insecure, motorcycle muscleman, scientist, person, mensch, longingly gay, nearly an outlaw writer, ever expanding man who will, surely, surprise us again.

I have all of Sacks books; very good. However, I wasn't too interested in his bedroom history. I was sorry to hear of his current medical condition, especially since I have the same ailment and prognosis.

I met Oliver Sacks at a conference many years ago and we discussed mutual interests in the field of Neurology as well as his penchant for swimming. He would pick a natural area to swim nearest to many of the places where he travelled for book tours and lectures. If you like the writings of Oliver Sacks, this book is a must. It was written a few years before his death and is a detailed autobiography. He is completely and nakedly honest. On the Move, includes details of his careers in neurology, and writing as well as describing intimate details of his private life including characterizations of his family, close friendships, acquaintances, and his homosexuality, in a touching and emotionally sensitive portrayal. Though the book is a tad lengthy, it reads easily and you truly won't want to put it down after you begin. It is an emotional and wonderful literary motorcycle ride. Highly recommended.

I have read and enjoyed Oliver Sack's books. This shows an amazing side of his life -- from an English traditional upbringing to a California muscle beach weight lifting winner. Lordy, what a life! I could read this book a dozen times for all the sides of his outstanding neurological ties to his patients; looked down upon by the American scientific medical community who still saw patients at a distance. Do yourself a favor and get this book; a memoir you won't put down

Written in the style of Oliver Sacks, so personal, not pedantic, a simple insight into his life and what influenced his direction. If you appreciate Oliver Sacks, have seen him interviewed or speak in videos, the book follows the style.

After enjoying, and learning, a lot from reading a lot of Sacks' other books, this autobiography provides a human-centered overview of his own development. Among other tidbits, I didn't know he had such celebrity relatives.

An honest and humane book that left me begging for more. My only previous exposure to Oliver Sacks was through his work in The New Yorker. But this book provided me with context and a greater understanding of a wonderfully curious man. After finishing this I wanted to read Awakenings and his other works. The section where Sacks discusses his mother, his brother's long battle with mental illness and his endless struggle to find companionship were told in such an honest fashion that they were, at times, painful. I devoured this book in a day.

Sacks is such a gifted humanitarian. The book gives us an idea of how neurology patients were too often not regarded as whole people but more as subjects, and the degree that such a narrowing perception prohibited or curtailed understanding of neuropathologies. It is rare for a doctor to be a writer also, and even rarer to be such an engaging one.

It would have been wonderful to know this man personally. I hope he will always be remembered and this book read as an example that even as we regulars guys stumble around, brilliant people do their share of stumbling too along the way of contributing to mankind's positive mark on this world.

I found this book very interesting. Getting background information about the research he was involved in, and why he wrote the books that he did was fascinating. Also getting the feel of what it is like to be Jewish as well as what he shared about being gay touched me a great deal. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Dr. Sacks combines the ability to have lead a fascinating life with the writing ability to adequately describe it. His adventures of the mind and spirit are matched by his physical adventures. I enjoyed every page of this book.

A fascinating story of the life of a genius. Oliver Sacks has made some great contributions the study of neuropsychology and psychiatry. His own life story is also very educational. He tells it all in this book. It is an important work because he is an honest and humble yet brilliant man.

A wonderful summation of a life well and thoughtfully lived. Oliver Sacks represents at once a throwback to the kind of physicians who not only valued their patients and took their time with them but could describe their lives and illness with the uncanny attention to detail associated with the greatest of 19th century novelists. He single-handedly resurrected phenomenology as a critical element in bridging the gap between mind and brain. And as a physician I hope his work will inspire future generations of doctors - he certainly has inspired me.

Never wanted this book to end! Have loved, respected, and read Dr. Sacks for decades and now this revealing of his own life and his family is just as engrossing as any of his fascinating cases he has shown us.

A dear personal story blessed with the perspective of. 80 years. I liked the raw narrative of feelings, personal yearnings and drive that was behind his brilliant observations and great accomplishments. I'd recommend it to anyone who appreciates wisdom gained over years of living in full throttle.

Oliver Sacks never disappoints, and in this book he reveals so much of himself that he never shared before. How can one man be so endlessly interesting? And how does he manage to do so much in one lifetime?

I read this book with total fascination though I know very little indeed about Oliver Sacks' fields of study, but the great and unique capacity of thought and the love of his patients and friends and admiration for his colleagues carried me wherever the book took me. He has a soaring delight in life, all life. The structure of the book is just marvelous: you are in his English childhood, and then in search of some marvelous study, and then with him lifting weights, and describing his beloved aunt, and riding trucks. And he writes exquisitely; he was taught by the great classical English writers and it soars through. His writing is like singing. And I was especially delighted to read of his life on City Island, that small quirky old fisherman's village in the Bronx, New York. I know that place and used to eat in one of the restaurants he talks about but I don't think I ever saw him even though the street has only 30 houses. He celebrates the individual in us all and shows that out of our differences can come a sort of genius, however modest or however great. He is a combination of both.

I don't usually like autobiographical works but this one drew me in from the beginning. His writing is so vivid - I felt as if I were going along for the ride on his many adventures. I'm glad he has found love.

In February 2017, the book discussion group met at The LGBT Center in NYC to discuss this autobiography.

I was worried that people would be disappointed in the lack of gay sex in "On the Move," but instead, the amount of sex became a serious talking point. Almost everyone liked the first half of the book (which has a number of gay sex adventures) before Sacks became celibate for 35 years. Yes, Sacks finds a partner in the final pages of the book, but we also had to discuss this brief appearance.

It seems that Sacks wasn't too self-aware or anxious to talk about his sexual appetites. Despite his keen observational skills, he seemed rather lost in discussing his own repressed sexuality and the number of times that he put himself among other men (weightlifting, riding motorcycles, hitchhiking, allowing bushy-bearded strangers to sort of move in, hanging out with gay poets - even if he doesn't identify them as gay in the book, and so on). One reader suggested that Sacks was "homosocial" rather than "homosexual" and that he liked being admired even if he wasn't too aware of his need for confirmation. In any case, Sacks never really "connects" with a sexual partner until late in life.

Most of us found much of the writing rather flat, perhaps because it was written under rushed conditions (he died shortly after it was finished) or perhaps because that's how medical case studies are written, which is the default style for Sacks. He made a fetish of writing detailed case studies, returning to the Romantic 19th Century practice that doctors used for research.

We also took Sacks to task for only mentioning AIDS once in passing. That seems to be a major omission for a doctor in NY and San Francisco in the 1980's and 1990's.

An interesting discussion took place about his "perceptiveness" versus his "caring:" Which of these made him a better doctor? His perception is absolutely Sherlock Holmesian (Arthur Conan Doyle was also a doctor!) and everyone praises his caring nature.

His rich life made most of us feel like we've really accomplished nothing. He's a great person, a terrific doctor, a reckless adventurer, a fabulous researcher, but not a great writer compared to other doctors and populizers (such as Siddhartha Mukherjee and Atul Gawande). Generally, "On the Move" is interesting but depends on a few great stories and lot of "and then and then" listing of accomplishments, books, trips, and famous friends. More reflection would be helpful. About that 35-year dry spell for sex, for example, what was that like? And your "face blindness," what could that be about? Any ideas why you found meth to be so attractive for so long? Any regrets or repercussions about being a serious drug user while practicing medicine?

Despite these criticisms, we found the book to be mostly interesting (especially the first half) and informative.

This is a deeply thoughtful autobiography of a multi-faceted, complex man who was both brilliant and a profound humanist. He was something of a hot mess as well. Although he never says it (although I might have missed it), he appears to have been bipolar, struggled to come to terms with his sexuality, was deeply shy (although he had a gazillion friends and close colleagues) was a compulsive writer (he had over 1000 notebooks of his writings), and decidedly accident prone. He had a wide range of interests from music, to neurology, weigh lifting, the art of writing, and botany and invertebrates, just to name a handful of them. The most beautiful thing about him was how attuned he was to his patients and how deeply interested he was, no matter how incapacitated they were. Depending on your own interests, parts of the book might drag, but he's such a delightful writer that I found almost everything worth reading. This clocks in at just under 400 pages and I was very sorry when it ended.

Informative, touching, in many ways the way Sacks tells his story replicates the way he lived his life: detailed, circular, observant, engaged in all ways. Having read many of Sacks's books, I found it fascinating to learn about his writing process. A life well-lived, well-documented by a person who gifted us by being.

Totally unexpected sides of a person I have long admired. Well worth reading. Even more than before, I can appreciate the narrative style he used in most of his books, and the cost to him in his career. And City Island? Just happened to be swimming by a house he decided to buy on the spot?

It is extremely interesting to learn so much about Oliver Sacks. It may be that because I place him on such a pedestal and so much respect his other work, that I found the book episodic and disappointing.

With the usual honesty and humanity that has typified Oliver Sacks, his autobiography is made even more poignant by his recent death. This is a story of an extraordinary life, during which Sacks' empathetic studies of the suffering of others was not limited by having to deny his own personal suffering. An exceptional book about an exception person.

I have been greatly moved by this book. I recommend it to everyone I love. I share many thoughts and feelings with Dr. Sacks. He and I are the same age, and I want to learn a great deal more than I know now as a result of reading the book. I want to live forever, and am doing what I can to do so.

I hope passionately for a miracle that with help him live well for a long time.

Informative, touching, in many ways the way Sacks tells his story replicates the way he lived his life: detailed, circular, observant, engaged in all ways. Having read many of Sacks's books, I found it fascinating to learn about his writing process. A life well-lived, well-documented by a person who gifted us by being.

Totally unexpected sides of a person I have long admired. Well worth reading. Even more than before, I can appreciate the narrative style he used in most of his books, and the cost to him in his career. And City Island? Just happened to be swimming by a house he decided to buy on the spot?

It is extremely interesting to learn so much about Oliver Sacks. It may be that because I place him on such a pedestal and so much respect his other work, that I found the book episodic and disappointing.

With the usual honesty and humanity that has typified Oliver Sacks, his autobiography is made even more poignant by his recent death. This is a story of an extraordinary life, during which Sacks' empathetic studies of the suffering of others was not limited by having to deny his own personal suffering. An exceptional book about an exception person.

I have been greatly moved by this book. I recommend it to everyone I love. I share many thoughts and feelings with Dr. Sacks. He and I are the same age, and I want to learn a great deal more than I know now as a result of reading the book. I want to live forever, and am doing what I can to do so.

I hope passionately for a miracle that with help him live well for a long time.

I was captivated by this book from the first page to the last. Dr. Sacks has an amazing mind--far-ranging, analytic, synthetic, and always personal and full of respect for others and the human condition. I am enriched for having read this as the world has been enriched by his keen mind and observations. Thank you, Dr. Sacks.

Sacks nails his own writing style. I have to admire his endless output. What a dynamo! He does write well but I found this book rather staccato in its wide-ranging topics. While I’m glad to have gotten an overall sense of his life and his obsessive need to write, I tired of the unrelenting fragments of this book.

It again revealed "be prepaired to open your heart and mind to rethinking priorities" you will gain new perceptions that will add to your life but will be forced to give some up. You can't go back to 'Kansas'.