An Anthropologist On Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales

We see and interact with this world the way our
central nervous system allows us to. And this form
may be completely altered or shattered by a neurologic disease.
In "An Anthropologist on Mars", sensitive Oliver
Sacks shows us seven of his patients, with different illnesses, who gained a new world, a new adaptation, provided by alterations on their brain.
More than showing physiopathologic aspects, Sacks'
incredible sense of style and knowledge transmit the world the way THEIR PATIENTS see it, and so creates the concept of "creative disease", the productive side of a disease.
Also included are congenital entities, such as autism, and even its aspects on the patient's life and the way it influenced its work is seen with profound humanity.
Pleasant, informative and "eye-opening" is what I'd call this great book.

Andre Troiano ([email protected]), Florianopolis, Brasil.

This is the second book by Oliver Sacks I have read, the first being the hat book. I enjoyed both but found this one to be more consistently enjoyable. Sacks shares many interesting stories even within each chapter on particular patients and friends without ever straying too far from topic. This sort of reading will give you a real appreciation for the hardships many people live with, and it will really open your eyes as the possibilities that exist with brain damage and various neurological conditions. Personally I think every student of neuroscience or psychology should read at least one of Sacks' books, and this would be a fine choice. Both were some of the most interesting books I read in 2012.

This is the first Oliver Sacks book I've read and I found it fascinating and informative. Once I started a case history I was hard-put to stop reading until I found out the end result. I particularly enjoyed the stories about the amnesiac Greg and the colorblind artist. Sacks puts a human face on insights about how our brains work in an intellectually stimulating yet emotionally touching way. I found the story about Virgil, the blind man who gets his sight back and must learn how to see in his 50s particularly heart-wrenching. The only story I bailed out on was about an autistic woman who works in a cattle slaughterhouse. (I could not handle the graphic nature of the story.) I definitely recommend this book if you appreciate shows like Nova or if you watch Discovery television. Anyone who wants to know more about the mysteries of our human brains will be enriched by this book.

Many of us feel removed from the world of medicine. Doctors seem to speak a language beyond our comprehension. Oliver Sacks takes us into his world where we feel immediately at home. He writes of real people and gives us a fascinating, if disturbing, insight into the paradoxes of the human mind.
For me the most moving story is 'The Last Hippy'. Greg lost his immediate memory following a massive cerebral tumour. However many times you see him it is always a meeting of strangers. They go to a Grateful Dead concert. Greg is once again a fan. He shouts cheers and sings. Next day the whole experience has gone.
We also read of the Tourette's syndrome sufferer whose tics disappear whenever he begins work - as a surgeon. There is the artist who sees only black and white, the autistic/artistic genius.
This is a gem of a book which deserves to be read over and over. You will learn something new every time.

I've read several books by this author, including "The man who mistook his wife for a hat", "The island of the color blind" and "Seeing voices", but I have to say that this is the one I've enjoyed the most.
In keeping with the format of his hugely popular "The man who mistook his wife for a hat", Oliver Sacks presents his readers with several case stories that are both gripping and enlightening. As always, the author's greatest talent is being able to teach the general reader about the intricacies of the human mind, without reducing the particular patient to something other than human. The people behind each of these case studies are never reduced to being just freaks of nature, but are instead described with a great deal of respect.
I highly recommend all of Dr Sacks' books, but this is the best one to start with if you're new to his work. However, if lengthy footnotes are a pet peeve of yours, you may want to stay away. I, on the other hand, along with many other of his readers, really enjoy the many footnotes as they give his books more depth and points the reader in new interesting directions.

I recommend Dennis Littrell's review of this book on this site.He outlines clearly what the book is about, and gives us the basic story of each of the seven chapters, the seven cases that make up the book. He headlines his review 'extraordinary genius' and I share this feeling about Oliver Sachs.

What I find most remarkable about Sachs' work is his ability to patiently study, and work to help people who seem lost completely. Instead of being as most of us are repelled by these kind of often 'freakish abnormalities ' Sachs in studying the people and recounting their cases , makes their stories 'human'. He extends in a certain way our conception of what the human is, and increases our sense of how remarkable the human mind is.

He is also a most moving author whose human sympathy and compassion inspire.

Oliver Sacks' "An Anthropologist on Mars" is more than a collection of fascinating neurological case studies. Not only does Sacks offer a generous and holistic view of his subjects as complex individuals living in the real world, but he uses their disorders to raise provocative questions about what human Selfhood and intelligence mean. Is the color we see an objective external quality that is simply received by the brain, or is it constructed through an engagement between the brain and the environment? Are the memories that define our sense of who we are stored intact by the brain, awaiting retrieval, or must they be endlessly re-created? What are the potential relationships between memory and creativity, between art and disease, or between spirituality and disease? And perhaps most importantly, how can we separate the essence of individual identity from a lifelong neurological disorder, and at what cost is such a separation achieved? My only regret is that Sacks did not write some sort of postscript to bring together, and discuss more fully side-by-side, the many interesting question raised throughout this rich text.

The purpose of this review is to provide my feedback to any potential reader who is considering to read "An Anthropologist on Mars" by Oliver Sacks. By reflecting on my opinion and by providing a synopsis, I'm hoping to help readers make the right decision when it comes to purchasing the same.
Overall, I enjoyed reading "An Anthropologist on Mars" by Oliver Sacks. The fact that the author, Oliver Sacks, is a physician and a professor of neurology and psychiatry is reflected in the style that is prevalent. What makes this book a great piece is the fact that he uses his clinical case studies to educate readers. In this book, he uses his seven subjects: Jonathan I, Greg F, Carl Bennett, Virgil, Franco Magnani, Stephen Wiltshire, and Temple Grandin. There are a total of seven chapters where each chapter is dedicated to one of the seven subjects. By focusing on each subject's disease or disorder, the author takes readers through a first person narrative journey where the reader gets to experience the changes and adaptations his subject's life went through. Ironically, the seven tales discussed points out the fact that pathology plays an important role in understanding brain. When one tries to study the causes of neurological damages, it often reveals information about the physiology of brain and its parts.
Synopsis:
This book is divided into seven chapters: The Case of the Colorblind Painter, The Last Hippie, A Surgeon's Life, To See and Not See, The Landscape of His Deams, Prodigies, An Anthropologist on Mars.
"The Case of the Colorblind Painter" is about Jonathan I. This case study showed how Mr. I. experienced total colorblindness after an accident. His colorful world became completely black and white. He no longer was able to see, imagine, dream or recall memories in color. This was extremely difficult for him as he spent his entire life in color as a painter to finally lose it at age 65. However, overtime, he learns to adapt to his new world and even create black and white paintings as a reflection of his new world. He described himself as turning into a night person as he was able to adjust his vision better in twilight rather than suffer from blinding effects of bright light.
"The Last Hippie" is about Greg F. This case study shows how brain tumor affected Greg's life. He had a midline tumor the size of an orange. It was extended to the frontal lobes, and also damaged pituitary gland and optic chiasm. Although it was surgically removed, the damage it caused was irreversible. The major after effects of tumor were vision loss and severe memory problems. He suffered from both retrograde amnesia which prevented him from remembering events from the past and anterograde amnesia which prevented him from creating new memories. His father described him as being dispossessed of his spirit, depth and realness.
"A Surgeon's Life" is about Carl Bennett. The author first gives a brief overview of biological, psychological and moral-viewpoint on Tourette's syndrome, and says that it's also important to take into consideration the inner and existential perspective of the affected. Then, he discusses how Dr. Bennett manages to be an efficient surgeon besides suffering from Tourette's syndrome. Dr. Bennett refereed to Tuorette's Syndrome as a disease of disinhibition, and his disease was marked by sudden impulsive or compulsive touching and circle markings on ground around him using his foot. What's really striking is the fact he can remain focused and un-Tourettic for hours while performing a surgery; he can concentrate unless he is disturbed and can remain tic-free during surgeries. The author even says that he knows sever surgeons with this disease and discusses other examples of with people with this disease. It's amazing to know how people deals with their symptoms and how some even has the capability to control their tics from interfering with their profession through effort.
"To See and Not See" is about Virgil. This case study shows how a 50 year old was able to regain the sight he lost when he was a kid. The author discusses how it's actually difficult to adjust to restored vision after being blind for so many years. Virgil was confused by all the visual inputs he first received because he was lacking perceptual constancy which is achieved in the first months of life by people with normal vision. His story emphasized the importance of experience and visual memories in giving meaning to what one sees.
"The Landscape of His Dreams" is about Franco Magnani. This case study describes an artist with incredible memory. Due to his fine three dimensional like memory, he is able to produce detailed, photographic like paintings of his hometown, Pontito. He didn't grow up as an artist or never had any training. It's only at age 39 when he started to experience visions of Pontito with three dimensional quality after an illness, he decided to produce paintings out of it. It's been suggested that his visions of his hometown that he missed a lot could be a result of hyperconnectivity of brain's emotional and sensory parts. The way he tried to adapt to his experimental seizure like hallucinations was by producing art.
"Prodigies" is about Stephen Wiltshire. The author discusses life of Stephen who was diagnosed with infantile autism at age 3. His fascination for pictures was seen by age 5, and his fixation was developed by age 7. It's common for autistic people to experience fixation, and his fixation was for buildings in London, and he started to draw lots of pictures. By age 8, it was noted that he had savant memory in grasping and reproducing complex visual, auditory, motor and verbal patterns. However, the author says that people with savant memory usually lack the skills to connect everything and get a general idea. Although Stephen was autistic, he was able to lead a creative life and even attend art school because of people who supported him and encouraged his gifted abilities.
"An Anthropologist on Mars" is about Temple Grandin. The author describes her as the most remarkable of autistic people. What makes her life story interesting is the fact that she is a professor with Ph.D in Animal Science besides being autistic. She turned out to be professionally qualified, but she finds herself to not fit in socially. She has an extraordinary ability to understand animals, but she says that she has extreme difficulty in understanding people; she says that she feels like 'an anthropologist on mars' (title of this book) in comparison to other people in the society. I found it interesting that she developed a squeeze machine that hugs her instead of having people to interact with her.
After reading this book, not only do I know what total colorblindness, amnesia, tourette's syndrome, and autism means, but I also know how does it feel to have these neurological disorders. The in depth use of case studies along with history, facts, research and similar case studies from past helps the readers to easily empathize as well as gain better understanding of these neurological disorders. I felt I learned a lot more than I could ever learn from a textbook as this book used real life examples. In addition, author provides further explanations through footnotes.
According to Oliver Sacks, "Defects, Disorders, Diseases, in this sense can play a paradoxical role, by bringing out latent powers, developments, evolutions, forms of life, that might never been seen or imaginable, in their absence." If you are interested in learning about neurological conditions from an expert, I recommend that you buy this book. I guarantee that this book is definitely worth your time and money.

I received "An Anthropologist on Mars" as a Christmas gift, and, having never been very interested in psychology, was hesistant to pick it up at first. After reading the first chapter (on an artist who goes color blind), however, I was hooked.
Each of the seven amazing accounts of different neurological disorders kept me more than interested; I found the author's details and descriptions of the his subjects absolutely fascinating. In addition, the separate stories are different enough to provide variety, but are similar enough in the way they are presented and written about to maintain contingency throughout the book.
Again, without knowing a lot about psychology, one can read this book and get a lot out of it. It's really, really interesting (and fun!) stuff, and it gets you to think. Overall, a great book.

What if a painter is color blind. Absolute color blindness is a rare condition. Sacks encountered a painter who had been injured. The color blindness experienced meant to the painter that everything appeared wrong. He particularly missed the colors of spring. Things were leaden. The artist did derive pleasure from looking at drawings. He did start painting again, black and white paintings. As time passed there was evidenced in the painting a lessening of fear and depression.

Sacks describes a a surgeon with Tourette's syndrome. Writers on temporal lobe epilepsy have spoken of the doubling of consciousness. One of the subjects of the essays, Franco, has a prodigious memory and a gift for painting. He paints the town of his boyhood incessantly. His Pontito is minutely accurate. Returning to the town was not the intense experience Franco expected. Everything seemed small.

Sacks writes of the savant syndrome in a child called Stephen, an accomplished artist. He has extraordinary powers of visual perception. Savant talents seem to have a more autonomous even automatic quality than normal ones.

The anthropologist on Mars is Temple Grandin. Her work devising cattle chutes is described. She is constantly trying to understand her own autism.

Oliver Sack's medical stories are sui generis. Running into them is always a delight.

I absolutely love the book and use it as a discussion point when I teach my introductory psychology students about brain and behavior relationships. The case of the color-blind painter is especially helpful at getting students to understand how consciousness and memory and perception all tie in together.
A brief aside on the hardback and the somewhat cryptic title to this review. The power went out in my apt this morning and as I was stumbling about looking for matches I noticed a glowing line on my bookshelf. I touched it and realized that one of my volumes had a glowing dust jacket... sure enough the publisher (or maybe Dr. Sacks?) really wanted us to know that this book **IS** illuminating. It seems that the front cover has been treated with some kinda florescent material. Trivia at its best!
Z

Could one be an artist without having a
real "self"?
The fascinating story of the autistic artist
Stephen Wiltshire makes one wonder. Apparently the
whole visible world just flows through him -
without making sense, without becoming part of him.
Yet, he can make excellent drawings!
This story and the others in the book are
indeed very interesting reading and does enlarge
ones understanding of what the human is.
To quote the book - It is possible that persons
with these traits (malfunctions) are more creative.
If science eliminated these genes, maybe the whole
world would be taken over by accountants!

And lets hope not!
It is so much more fascinating with all
its current mental richness!
-Simon

If you enjoy the neurology sciences then you definitely need to pick up this book, along with any other Oliver Sacks books you can get a hold of. These aren’t stories of happy endings; they are real stories of people doing the best they can in a world that isn’t kind to those that have neurological issues. The ending story of the 7 (An Anthropologist on Mars) was my favorite. Also, if you are interested in this subject in general, I would recommend anything by V.S. Ramachandran.

Sacks writing style and philosophy in this book is best described by a quote in the beginning of the book, "Ask not what disease the person has, but rather what person the disease has" (William Osler). Sacks does not look at simply the pathological and physiological way that the disease affects the individual but how the individual reacts to the disorder and how, in each of these cases, they retain their own sense of self despite what the disease/disorder does to them.
Unlike his earlier book, "The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat," Sacks does not just throw a barrage of patients with neurological disorders at the reader, but rather goes through the lives of seven patients and observes them in their natural life. He presents not only their disorder, but how it affects their daily life, how their perception of the world is different, and the creative ways that they have come up to deal with their disorder.

BRIEF SYNOPSIS WITH COMMENTARY

There are seven cases presented in this book:

Case 1 - The Case of the Colorblind Painter

This case talks about the predicament of a painter who after sixty five years had an accident which robbed him entirely of his color vision. A man, who had had a distinguished career as an artist with numerous vividly colored paintings and abstractions in his studio, could no longer even imagine color.
The painter eventually accepted his predicament and started to paint black-and-white representations instead of dwelling on the loss of his ability to paint in color. As Sacks explains, "...a revision was occurring, so that as his former color world and even the memory of it became fainter and died inside him, a whole new world of seeing, of imagination, of sensibility, was born" (40).

Case 2 - The Last Hippie

This case tells the tale of Greg, a hippie in the 1960s, who due to a number of unfortunate circumstances lived with an undiagnosed brain tumor for a number of years. Due to this tumor, he went blind, developed amnesia, and essentially became sort of "dead inside." Sacks focuses here not on the disorder itself but on the few instances of humanity and feeling he saw in him. For instance, Sacks writes about the time he observed Greg claiming that he had "lost something" after his father died - even though he would forget his father died, minutes after being told.

Case 3 - A Surgeon's Life

This account is about a surgeon who is inflicted with Tourette's, a disorder which causes uncontrollable tics. Oddly enough, he is still able to practice as his disorder does not occur when he is extremely focused.

Case 4 - To See and Not See

This case is about Virgil, a blind man who regained his vision but did not know how to see. He did not know that he was looking at a face, could not focus on anything etc. Sacks writes a lot about the philosophical and neurological implications of this - how we cannot just use our senses but have to learn how to use them. Unlike the other cases thus far, Virgil did not adapt as one would think to this miraculous restoration of eyesight. Virgil ended up losing his eyesight again, maybe because his fragile retinas were suddenly exposed to light and were burned out. In the end, he was relieved to be completely blind and rely again on the other senses (touch, smell etc) that he had honed over the years of his blindness.

Case 5 - The Landscape of his Dreams

In this case, Sacks talks about an artist, Franco, who perfectly remembered his childhood hometown and was able to draw it with photographic detail. However, his childhood memories were a curse and he neither talk nor draw anything else. Sacks talks about what may cause this, but in the end is unable to offer a cure.

Case 6 - Prodigies

In this section, Sacks writes about idiot savants and the autism that they usually suffer from. He discusses more than one example of these savants, but fixates on Stephen, a famous autistic artist at the age of thirteen.While Sacks is writing about Stephen the autistic artist, he muses: "Was not art, quintessentially, an expression of a person vision, a self? Could one be an artist without having a "self"?"(203). I believe that this philosophical point really cuts to the heart of this novel - are these people defined by their disorders or do they define their disorders, that is, is the disorder part of what they fundamentally are?

Case 7 - An Anthropologist on Mars

Finally, Sacks talks about the case that he named his book after. He talks about Temple Gardin who suffers from autism and feels like an "anthropologist on Mars" due to her severe social impairment, for instance, she cannot understand complex emotions and body language. The most astonishing part of her story was not her autism and her social impairment but how she was able to turn her emotional connection to animals into a job as a designer for animal management systems. Temple was even able to talk about the deep philosophical meaning that she believes her work has and how she wants to leave a positive legacy behind for others to follow - proving that her disorder had not entirely robbed her of her unique personality and humanity (as was the case with every other patient discussed in this book)

Each of these cases was selected by Sacks to illustrate a how a person's life was affected by a devastating neurological disorder but more importantly how that person dealt with it. Each case looks at how the person interacted with the disease rather than how the disease interacted with the person and explains many of the scientific underpinnings that explain the positive or just self-correcting changes in their life that the people with these disorders were able to make. My only real critique is that sometimes, Sacks makes references to patients he discussed in other books that other readers may not have read, and there is not enough context for the reader to fully understand these references.

RECOMMENDATION

This was one of the few nonfiction books I have read that was hard to put down. Because all of the obscure references that may throw readers off are actually mentioned in Sacks' other book "The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat," I recommend reading that before picking this one up. I did think out of all the Sacks books I have read that this one of the best - always detailed enough to give a clear picture of each patient but short enough to hold the reader's interest. I highly recommend this book to anyone from the layperson to the neuroscientist (though the layperson may have to look up a few terms)!

Yet again, Oliver Sacks gives us a new perspective of the human brain by studying its malfunction; he simultaneously gives us an appreciation of the adaptability and power of the human being when confronted with adversity. The people he observes exhibit various capabilities in addressing their disorders, but he manages to show that their personality survives, bruises and warts and all. He even manages a quick history of the prefrontal lobotomy, perhaps the most disturbing "medical" procedure created in this century. His portrait of Temple Grandin, the "anthropologist" of the title, is rich and faithful to her character. A wonderful work.

Wow. Not only did Oliver Sacks bring us unique and interesting stories, he told them so well. Mr. Sacks was an incredible writer. This is my first book I read of his and I was fascinated and lured into every story. I highly recommend this book to everyone, not only for the stories of individuals and their unimaginable medical conditions, but because the storytelling is wonderful and inspiring. I can't wait to pick up another book by him.

The first chapter, The Case of the Colorblind Artist was extremely fascinating and wide-ranging in its approach to how we see color and what color means. However, it was somewhat downhill from there.

The second chapter was also quite interesting ("The Last Hippy") but as I went forward, the material seemed to get less cohesive, and the book explored the topics less and less.

In the end, I decided to give this work 4 stars because all of it was interesting even if some of it was quite a bit more interesting than others.

Before he even begins, Sacks tells us where we're going with a quote attributed to William Osler: "Ask not what disease the person has, but rather what person the disease has."

In each chapter, Dr. Sacks introduces us to another person who happens to have some neurological disoder or difficulty, including autism, colorblindness, regaining of sight after 40 years, and Tourette's syndrome. The chapters are less about the disorders than they are about the people who live with the disorders.

We learn through Sack's accounts that humans are capable of amazing adaption and often can conquer afflictions that one would think inconquerable. The lives of Sacks' "persons who the diseases have" is often lived out far more fully than the reader would imagine. Perhaps our lives, too, can be lived out beyond our perceived limitations.

The first chapter, The Case of the Colorblind Artist was extremely fascinating and wide-ranging in its approach to how we see color and what color means. However, it was somewhat downhill from there.

The second chapter was also quite interesting ("The Last Hippy") but as I went forward, the material seemed to get less cohesive, and the book explored the topics less and less.

In the end, I decided to give this work 4 stars because all of it was interesting even if some of it was quite a bit more interesting than others.

Before he even begins, Sacks tells us where we're going with a quote attributed to William Osler: "Ask not what disease the person has, but rather what person the disease has."

In each chapter, Dr. Sacks introduces us to another person who happens to have some neurological disoder or difficulty, including autism, colorblindness, regaining of sight after 40 years, and Tourette's syndrome. The chapters are less about the disorders than they are about the people who live with the disorders.

We learn through Sack's accounts that humans are capable of amazing adaption and often can conquer afflictions that one would think inconquerable. The lives of Sacks' "persons who the diseases have" is often lived out far more fully than the reader would imagine. Perhaps our lives, too, can be lived out beyond our perceived limitations.

on the whole i'd say the book was very good. i agree with previous reviewers that some chapters were more interesting than others, but all were well written and really described the situations beyond the hard science. i liked that he didnt delve too far in to explaining why patients behaved the way they did, i.e., didnt go on and on about dysfunctional neurons and brain injuries. it was neat to see that dr sacks stayed in contact with the people he wrote about/studied and to see their progression or regression.

By no means do clinical case histories hold boundless interest; the cases themselves are only as interesting as they are far from analogy. The book opens with an outstanding treatise on perception (The Case of the Colorblind Artist) but, from then on, Sacks manages to enumerate merely interesting tales of various misperceptions without the neurological backdrop of the first history. This is not a bad thing -- often, by keeping the cases anecdotal Sacks is able to build a very good narrative. Make no mistake -- the book is indeed very good but doesn't set a consistent rhythym (there is a constant battle between clinical examination and anecdote) that is required for any work to be spectacular. I suspect this is in the writing and organization of the material; the material, standing alone, is of a great interest.

The description of clinical cases is not the commonest idea of a 'good time', especially for non-medical population. The usually dry and technically difficult prose plus the obscurity of the subject, provokes, even in accustomed mind of the physician, an unwillingness to proceed past the first 10 pages. I'm happy to say that, as usual, Sacks combines the well honed mind of a academician with the verve of a true stroryteller, and manages to produce a book at once acessible and challenging. The capacity to observe the patient as a different form of human being, instead of as just an 'interesting case', is a true insight into what Medicine should be; furthermore, as the author insistently teaches, neurological diseases differ from other ailments in that they become a true portion of the persona, and ,in a sense, they belong to the patient, whereas most people consider disease to be something that 'happens' to them, an outside influence not to be confused with the true Self. In every way, this book should be required reading for all neurologists - and physicians in general - , but let that not deter you from reading, and enjoying it: it is a truly acessible and moving book, and teaches us all something about the diversity and depths of the human kind.

Science, medicine and psychology aside, these people who are triumphing over the most inhuman odds are unforgettable and inspiring. Most would be unlovable to us if we knew them personally, but that's not important. All of us know people who've had many more advantages in life who have not lived up to their potentials. These folks more than make up for the underachievers. They're all somehow brilliant in their own rights.

I am filled with awe for a psychiatrist like Sacks, who takes personal interest in every special person he comes across in his professional life. He has the rare insight to recognise each individual as a unique, never-to-be-repeated creation of the Creator, and to accord the respect and awe due to each patient he comes across; even to observe, sometimes with a sense of humour, the relativity of our definitions of 'normaility'. The time Sacks takes to just be with each special person, and appreciate the uniqueness of each, is commendable, and goes way beyond a mere call of duty. When an autistic person, featured in this book, commended that she feels like "an anthropologist on Mars" because she has to study human behaviour and interactions to be socially adaptable, Sacks picked up on her standpoint, and recognised, with unusual humility, that as a psychiatrist of special persons, he too is like an anthropologist on Mars, not always understanding their world, but not being too quick to pronounce them stereotypically abnormal and himself normal...a sensitive, insightful work that reflects a sensitive, insightful author.

I, too, found this to be a wonderful, stimulating reading experience. This book receives an 8 instead of a 10 because some of the discussions about the physics of color vision in the first chapter would have been easier to understand with illustrations. As is, it's hard to follow at times. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

The book is very intriguing! Everyone is different one way or another, in this book, Sacks explores some of the more extreme cases, and talks about their life story to show how he/she has overcome with 'not being normal'. Sacks explain concepts in layman terms so that even people who are not in the medical field would not fall asleep whilst trying to grasp the situation.

Any "House" fans like myself will definately enjoy this book.

What intricacies lie in the minds of men? Only Oliver Sacks, in this new attempt at bringing the principals and studies of neurology to the common reader by sharing with us these case stories in anecdotal form, can provide such an enlightening answer, leaving us 'neurotic' and waiting for more

I will admit that I am not a science buff, but I thought this book was intriguing. The stories are thought provoking and surprising. From the surgeon with Tourette's to the artist who loses sense of color to the blind man who gains sight only to hate it, you will be enthralled. I did not want the book to end, and it is non-fiction!

AMAZING book. Hands down, one of my favorites!
The book is so incredibly inspirational! Everyone has a 'disability' one way or another, in this book, Sacks explores some of the extreme cases, and takes their life story to show how he/she has overcome with 'not being normal'. Sacks does a great job writing the book for people not in the medical field -- he takes the time to explain the situation without coming close to making the reader fall asleep.

I never get sick of this book. It is truly inspirational.

I know very little about psychology, but I found this book to be both informative and touching. I first heard about it when a cook at my summer camp read us "The Last Hippie" during an evening program. I was fascinated by the story. Finally, when I picked up a copy of the book for myself, I read through the whole thing in a day. I actually cried during one of the stories. Oliver Sacks teaches you a lot about how the human brain works without getting too clinical, and lets the humanity of the people he profiles shine through. This is a really good book.

This is one of those non-fiction books which keeps you turning the pages. Sacks is a neurologist who aside from having insights into the field also obviously truley cares about his subjects. He uses this care to get to a depth of explanation of case histories in a manner I have not encountered before. Highly recommended.

this books proves that when certain parts in a person mind may back lacking other my be more than other pepoles.this was a great book the essays are very moving and really make you feel for there subjects.i espically enjoyed the two autism articles.

If you have any interest in the brain, you've got to read Sacks. These stories are a great entry into thinking seriously about how the mind works. From a neurologist's perspective, but with a philosopher's depth of understanding, Sacks uses unusual cases of brain malfunction (though it is not always dysfunctional) to highlight how the "normal brain" works. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat and this one are great collections of essays.

Though I wouldn't recommend reading every single one of Sacks's books, because there's a lot of overlap, this is another good one with some fascinating, readable stories. Anyone interested in how the mind works and how it may NOT work should read it.

Expertly written, the stories are fascinating, endearing, & enlightening. You'll learn so much about how your own mind is wired by reading the stories of these very special people. The medical and literary communities need more people like Oliver Sacks.

If you are interested at all in brain research, you will find this book fascinating.

The author celebrates the human strength to overcome disabilities and the true creative drive that may be buried in each of us. I highly recommend this book for learning and also for inspiration.

After reading and not liking Oliver Sack's book Hallucinations, I decided to read some of his other works. First, I tried The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. I made it maybe half way through before quitting. It read like a freak show on paper. Next, I got this book. It was a relief to see the stories of the individuals were much longer, and Dr. Sacks seemed to be much more concerned with the various aspects of their lives, as opposed to just their afflictions or extraordinary abilities. Yet, I quit this book, too, before reading all seven stories. I read five and a half out of the seven. Maybe it's me, but his books leave me feeling so empty and they all seem so . . . hollow. There's just no other word to describe them. There's just something very important missing from them all. I'm not even sure what it is that's missing.

For any readers who want to read more about savants, or neurotypical individuals with savant like abilities, I would highly recommend Darold Treffert's Islands of Genius: The Bountiful Mind of the Autistic, Acquired, and Sudden Savant. I read that book and felt energized and intellectually excited. That book was the main reason I wanted to read Oliver Sack's books. I knew he had written about the same sort of things. But I'm finished with Dr. Sack's book. I couldn't wait to take his two books back to the library to get rid of them . . . to get rid of all the empty feelings they created inside me.

Although I don't agree with many of Oliver Sacks's conclusions, I found this fascinating book a worthwhile read. It is packed with superior case material - and largely presented in a very readable format (and unlike in some of his other books, he reins in his footnotes!). Some of the chapters, like "Prodigies" or "An Anthropologist On Mars" or "To See Or Not To See," are downright brilliant and provide wonderful and unusual insights into the workings of the human brain - and the universals of human experience. Other chapters (such as "The Colorblind Painter" and "The Landscape Of His Dreams") are weak and drag on, rehashing the same relatively minute points ad nauseum.

Overall, however, Sacks's main weakness is his lack of understanding of emotions, particularly the emotional dynamics between parents and children. He does occasionally wax eloquent about emotional states and spirituality, but this comes across more as an intellectualization of emotions than a truly deep grasp of them. He has little respect for their power to mold neurological development, and sidesteps his own data that point in this direction. To me this is shoddy science, and he failed to convince me of his foregone conclusion that disorders like autism and Tourette's syndrome are neurological in origin.

In his chapter on Tourette's, Sacks presents a surgeon who appears to be acting out a huge degree of repressed hostility through his unconsciously motivated peculiarities. Sacks even opens the door a crack into why the surgeon might do it - that he was adopted and painfully isolated as a child, and it's not hard to speculate that he might be totally enraged at his rotten lot in early childhood life, and yet unable to express this appropriate anger through healthy avenues of expression, because that would only earn him MORE rejection. So instead (my gut tells me, though I lack the data to take it further) he acted it out through Tourette's. But Sacks never touches this one with a ten foot pole, or even speculates as to this possibility, and instead just idealizes this man for his bizarre outbursts, his violence, his hostility toward his own children, his terrible boundaries, and his occasional ability to rein in his symptoms and function super-normally. Had the surgeon not been so high functioning, and people not put up with his oddness and general offensiveness, I highly doubt Sacks would be putting him on such a pedestal.

But I really question Sacks's confidence in stating that autism has nothing to do with childhood trauma. My gut tells me that at least some autistic children were emotionally traumatized in early childhood or in the womb, and were reacting on a primal level to their mothers' emotional pathology. Every fetus reacts to maternal emotional pathology - and emotional health - at some level, and I feel the autistic response is just an ultra-extreme one, like the crème de la crème of a schizoid response, so much so that the parts of the fetal brain that develop healthy emotional relating and expression and self-reflection become stunted or dead. My viewpoint might be difficult to prove, but I see it as less difficult to prove than Sacks's neurological etiology, which he defends in the most convenient way of all - by not even considering any opposing points of view.

But in a world hell-bent on minimizing the blame on mothers for their children's problems, it makes sense why Sacks can get away with turning such a blind eye.