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April 2010 Good Housekeeping selection.
On My Bookshelf by Hilary Mantel...
In The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, the famous neurologist Oliver Sacks opened his casebook to show the strangeness of the human condition. No invention could match these real-life cases for interest, and he marries the scientist’s precision to the intensely perceptive, intuitive qualities of a born artist.
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The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Synopsis
Celebrating Fifty Years of Picador Books
If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self - himself - he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it.
In this extraordinary book, Dr. Oliver Sacks recounts the stories of patients struggling to adapt to often bizarre worlds of neurological disorder. Here are people who can no longer recognize everyday objects or those they love; who are stricken with violent tics or shout involuntary obscenities, and yet are gifted with unusually acute artistic or mathematical talents. If sometimes beyond our surface comprehension, these brilliant tales illuminate what it means to be human.
A provocative exploration of the mysteries of the human mind, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a million-copy bestseller by the twentieth century's greatest neurologist.
Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.
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Oliver Sacks Press Reviews
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is populated by a cast as strange as that of the most fantastic fiction. The subject of this strange and wonderful book is what happens when things go wrong with parts of the brain most of us don't know exist ...Dr Sacks shows the awesome powers of our mind and just how delicately balanced they have to be' - Sunday Times
'Who is this book for? Who is it not for? It is for everybody who has felt from time to time that certain twinge of self-identity and sensed how easily, at any moment, one might lose it' - The Times
'This is, in the best sense, a serious book. It is, indeed, a wonderful book, by which I mean not only that it is excellent (which it is) but also that it is full of wonder, wonders and wondering. He brings to these often unhappy people understanding, sympathy and respect. Sacks is always learning from his patients, marvelling at them, widening his own understanding and ours' - Punch
About Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks was born in London and educated in London, Oxford, and California. He practices neurology in New York City, where he is also clinical professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and adjunct professor of neurology at the NYU School of Medicine. Author of such classic works as Awakenings and Uncle Tungsten, Oliver Sacks has received numerous awards for his writing, including the Hawthornden Prize, a Polk Award, and a Guggenheim fellowship. He is a member of the American Fern Society and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
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