A classic work of psychology, this international bestseller provides a groundbreaking insight into the human mind. With an introduction by Will Self, read by Oliver Sacks. 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 uncanny artistic or mathematical talents. If inconceivably strange, 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.

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The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Have you ever seen something that wasn't really there? Heard someone call your name in an empty house? Sensed someone following you and turned around to find nothing? Hallucinations don't belong wholly to the insane. Much more commonly, they are linked to sensory deprivation, intoxication, illness, or injury. In some conditions, hallucinations can lead to religious epiphanies or even the feeling of leaving one's own body. Humans have always sought such life-changing visions, and for thousands of years have used hallucinogenic compounds to achieve them. In Hallucinations, with his usual elegance, curiosity, and compassion, Dr Oliver Sacks weaves together stories of his patients and of his own mind-altering experiences to illuminate what hallucinations tell us about the organization and structure of our brains, how they have influenced every culture's folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all, a vital part of the human condition.

Hallucinations

'The story of a disease that plunged its victims into a prison of viscous time, and the drug that catapulted them out of it' – Guardian Hailed as a medical classic, and the subject of a major feature film as well as radio and stage plays and various TV documentaries, Awakenings by Oliver Sacks is the extraordinary account of a group of twenty patients. Rendered catatonic by the sleeping-sickness epidemic that swept the world just after the First World War, all twenty had spent forty years in hospital: motionless and speechless; aware of the world around them, but exhibiting no interest in it – until Dr Sacks administered the then-new drug, L-DOPA, which caused them, temporarily, to awake from their decades-long slumber . . .

Awakenings

With an introduction by neuroscientist Daniel Glaser. With his trademark compassion and erudition, Dr Oliver Sacks examines the power of music through the individual experiences of patients, musicians, and everyday people. Among them: a surgeon who is struck by lightning and suddenly becomes obsessed with Chopin; people with ‘amusia’, to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of poets and pans; and a man whose memory spans only seven seconds – for everything but music. Dr Sacks describes how music can animate people with Parkinson’s disease who cannot otherwise move, give words to stroke patients who cannot otherwise speak, and calm and organize people who are deeply disoriented by Alzheimer’s or schizophrenia. Musicophilia alters our conception of who we are and how we function, and shows us an essential part of what it is to be human.

Musicophilia

Oliver Sacks died in August 2015 at his home in Greenwich Village, surrounded by his close friends and family. He was 82. He spent his final days doing what he loved: playing the piano, swimming, enjoying smoked salmon – and writing . . . As Dr Sacks looked back over his long, adventurous life his final thoughts were of gratitude. In a series of remarkable, beautifully written and uplifting meditations, in Gratitude Dr Sacks reflects on and gives thanks for a life well lived, and expresses his thoughts on growing old, facing terminal cancer and reaching the end. I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and travelled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.

Gratitude

'A mine of treasures, a source of visions, a microcosm of human experience and suffering, the philosopher's stone: Migraine is a remarkable achievement' - Sunday Telegraph. Migraine is an age-old – the first recorded instances date back over two thousand years – and often debilitating condition, affecting a 'substantial minority' of the population across the globe. In Migraine, Oliver Sacks offers at once a medical account of its occurrence and management; an exploration of its physical, physiological, and psychological underpinnings and consequences; and a meditation on the nature and experience of health and illness.

Migraine

How does the brain perceive and interpret information from the eye? And what happens when the process is disrupted? In The Mind’s Eye, Oliver Sacks tells the stories of people who are able to navigate the world and communicate with others despite losing what many of us consider indispensable senses and abilities: the capacity to recognize faces, the sense of three-dimensional space, the ability to read, the sense of sight. For all of these people, the challenge is to adapt to a radically new way of being in the world – and The Mind’s Eye is testament to the myriad ways that we, as humans, are capable of rising to this challenge. ‘Oliver Sacks is a perfect antidote to the anaesthetic of familiarity. His writing turns brains and minds transparent’ – Observer

The Mind's Eye

As with his previous bestseller, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, in An Anthropologist on Mars Oliver Sacks uses case studies to illustrate the myriad ways in which neurological conditions can affect our sense of self, our experience of the world, and how we relate to those around us. Writing with his trademark blend of scientific rigour and human compassion, he describes patients such as the colour-blind painter or the surgeon with compulsive tics that disappear in the operating theatre; patients for whom disorientation and alienation – but also adaptation – are inescapable facts of life. 'An inexhaustible tourist at the farther reaches of the mind, Sacks presents, in sparse, unsentimental prose, the stories of seven of his patients. The result is as rich, vivid and compelling as any collection of short fictional stories' – Independent on Sunday

An Anthropologist on Mars

‘Oliver Sacks is a perfect antidote to the anaesthetic of familiarity. His writing turns brains and minds transparent’ - Observer When Oliver Sacks, a physician by profession, injured his leg while climbing a mountain, he found himself in an unusual position – that of patient. The injury itself was severe, but straightforward to fix; the psychological effects, however, were far less easy to predict, explain, or resolve: Sacks experienced paralysis and an inability to perceive his leg as his own, instead seeing it as some kind of alien and inanimate object, over which he had no control. A Leg to Stand On is both an account of Sacks’ ordeal and subsequent recovery, and an exploration of the ways in which mind and body are inextricably linked.

A Leg to Stand On

'Seeing Voices is both a history of the deaf and an account of the development of an extraordinary and expressive language' – Evening Standard Imaginative and insightful, Seeing Voices by Oliver Sacks offers a way into a world that is, for many people, alien and unfamiliar – for to be profoundly deaf is not just to live in a world of silence, but also to live in a world where the visual is paramount. In this remarkable book, Sacks explores the consequences of this, including the different ways in which the deaf and the hearing impaired learn to categorize their respective worlds – and how they convey and communicate those experiences to others.

Seeing Voices

Oliver Sacks, the bestselling author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, is most famous for his studies of the human mind: insightful and beautifully characterized portraits of those experiencing complex neurological conditions. However, he has another scientific passion: the fern . . . Since childhood Oliver has been fascinated by the ability of these primitive plants to survive and adapt in many climates. Oaxaca Journal is the enthralling account of his trip, alongside a group of fellow fern enthusiasts, to the beautiful province of Oaxaca, Mexico. Bringing together Oliver’s endless curiosity about natural history and the richness of human culture with his sharp eye for detail, this book is a captivating evocation of a place, its plants, its people, and its myriad wonders. ‘Light and fast-moving, unburdened by library research but filled with erudition’ – New Yorker

Oaxaca Journal

Uncle Tungsten radiates all the delight and wonder of a boy’s adventures, and is an unforgettable portrait of an extraordinary young mind. Oliver Sacks evokes, with warmth and wit, his upbringing in wartime England. He tells of the large science-steeped family who fostered his early fascination with chemistry. There follow his years at boarding school where, though unhappy, he developed the intellectual curiosity that would shape his later life. And we hear of his return to London, an emotionally bereft ten-year-old who found solace in his passion for learning. ‘If you did not think that gallium and iridium could move you, this superb book will change your mind’ – The Times

Uncle Tungsten

Un giorno, a New York, Oliver Sacks partecipa all'incontro organizzato da un batterista con una trentina di persone affette dalla sindrome di Tourette. Poi il batterista inizia a suonare, e tutti in cerchio lo seguono con i loro tamburi: come per incanto i tic scompaiono, e il gruppo si fonde in una perfetta sincronia ritmica. Presentando questo e molti altri casi con la consueta capacità di immedesimazione, Sacks esplora la "straordinaria forza neurale" della musica e i suoi nessi con le funzioni e disfunzioni del cervello.

Musicofilia

Fra il 1917 e il 1927, una grave epidemia di encefalite letargica (malattia del sonno) colpì quasi cinque milioni di persone. Una minuscola frazione dei malati sopravvisse, in una sorta di perpetuo torpore, fino al 1969, quando un nuovo farmaco, la L-dopa, permise di 'risvegliarli'. Oliver Sacks, fra il 1969 e il 1972, somministrò questo farmaco a più di duecento malati al Mount Carmel Hospital di New York. "Risvegli" racconta le storie di venti di loro.

Risvegli

Una serie di casi clinici che ha lo stesso fascino delle Mille e una notte. Con straordinaria empatia e umanità, Sacks racconta le strane storie di pazienti neurologici che hanno perduto un pezzo della loro vita o una parte costitutiva del sé. Come il musicista che carezza distrattamente gli idranti credendo che siano teste di bambini. O il marinaio che è convinto di vivere nel 1945. Il viaggio di un nuotatore “in acque sconosciute, dove può accadere di dover capovolgere le solite considerazioni, dove la malattia può essere benessere e la normalità malattia.”

L'uomo che scambiò sua moglie per un cappello

El hombre que confundió a su mujer con un sombrero se convirtió inmediatamente en un clásico y consagró a Oliver Sacks como «uno de los grandes escritores clínicos del siglo» ( The New York Times). En este libro, Oliver Sacks narra veinte historiales médicos de pacientes perdidos en el mundo extraño y aparentemente irremediable de las enfermedades neurológicas. Se trata de casos de individuos, aquejados por inauditas aberraciones de la percepción que han perdido la memoria, y con ella, la mayor parte de su pasado; que son incapaces de reconocer a sus familiares o los objetos cotidianos; que han sido descartados como retrasados mentales y que, sin embargo, poseen insólitos dones artísticos o científicos. Por extraños que parezcan estos casos, el doctor Sacks los relata con pasión humana y gran talento literario. Son estudios que nos permiten acceder al universo de los enfermos nerviosos y comprender su situación frente a las adversidades. Como gran médico, Oliver Sacks nunca pierde de vista el cometido final de la medicina: «el sujeto humano que sufre y lucha». «Sacks juesga con nuestras experiencias rutinarias para conducirnos por las maravillosas aventuras de la mente. Es imposible permanecer indiferente ante esta obra que sin duda se ha convertido ya en un clásico» ( Sunday Times). «Un libro para recomendar a todos: médicos y enfermos, lectores de novelas y de poesía, cultivadores de psicología y de metafísica, vagabundos y sedentarios» (Pietro Citati).

El hombre que confundió a su mujer con un sombrero

Oliver Sacks siempre se ha sentido atraído por las islas, esos «experimentos de la naturaleza, lugares benditos y malditos por su singularidad geográfica, que albergan formas de vida únicas». En su última obra, esta fascinación le lleva más lejos que nunca, a las remotas islas del Pacífico, donde concilia su afición a explorar el mundo real con su pasión por investigar el mundo de la mente. En esta ocasión abandona transitoriamente a los individuos y con herramientas no sólo de neurólogo sino también de antropólogo, investiga a grandes grupos de población que han sido condicionados por un defecto o una deficiencia física. En Pingelap y Pohnpei, dos diminutas islas de Micronesia, una proporción muy elevada de la población es completamente ciega al color. Sacks, acompañado por un oftalmólogo y por un científico noruego que también ve el mundo en blanco, negro e infinitos grises, visita las islas e investiga la influencia que esta peculiaridad de sus habitantes tiene sobre la vida cotidiana y cómo se refleja en su cultura y sus mitos. En Guam, otra isla del Pacífico, existe una enfermedad neurodegenerativa que ha sido endémica en los últimos cien años. El lytico-bodig, como la denominan los nativos, se presenta a veces como una parálisis progresiva, que convierte a quienes la sufren en estatuas humanas; en otras ocasiones sus síntomas son parecidos a los del síndrome de Parkinson, acompañado de demencia. A pesar de años de investigación, esta enfermedad continúa siendo un enigma. Una hipótesis, nunca probada, la atribuye al consumo de harina fabricada con las semillas de la cicadácea, un árbol cuyo origen se remonta a la prehistoria y que siempre ha fascinado a los botánicos. Pero La isla de los ciegos al color es mucho más que la intrigante exploración de dos enigmas médicos; es también la absorbente crónica del viaje por unas islas que siempre se nos han aparecido como remotas y misteriosas, visitadas por Darwin y ocupadas por los japoneses en la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Porque Oliver Sacks es la mejor prueba de que la casi siempre impenetrable división entre las artes y las ciencias podría no existir. Catedrático de neurología en una de las mejores escuelas de medicina, sus libros muestran un sólido y actualizado conocimiento científico pero también son narraciones apasionantes que atrapan al lector, y son siempre un vehículo para una audaz, original exploración de la condición humana. «Como escritor de libros de viaje, Sacks está en la misma categoría que Paul Theroux y Bruce Chatwin. Como investigador de los misterios de la mente, es absolutamente único» ( Publishers Weekly). «Una vez mñas, Sacks navega por los mares más salvajes y extraños de la experiencia humana» (Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times). «Un libro científico que se puede leer como una fábula moderna y que nos emociona y conmueve como una novela» (Livia Manera, La Stampa).

La isla de los ciegos al color

Considerado uno de los grandes escritores clínicos del siglo, Oliver Sacks nos presenta en su último libro siete casos neurológicos que constituyen una profunda reflexión sobre la esencia de la identidad y los mecanismos del conocimiento. Un pintor que tras un accidente de coche deja de ver el color; un cirujano cuyos continuos tics y compulsiones sólo remiten cuando opera o pilota su aeroplano; un hombre que tras toda una vida de ceguera recupera la vista sólo para darse cuenta de que no sabe ver; una profesora autista capaz tan sólo de tratar y comprender a los animales, y a quien la complejidad de las emociones humanas deja tan perpleja que se siente como «un antropólogo en Marte»: éstos son algunos de estos «relatos paradójicos» que nos presentan un aspecto de la existencia que nos sería imposible conocer sin esa anomalía denominada enfermedad. Para Sacks, que en cierto modo también comparte esa condición de antropólogo en Marte, no se trata tanto de qué enfermedad tiene una persona, sino de cómo la persona se halla atrapada en la enfermedad y sometida a sus leyes, y de cómo todo lo que constituye la identidad sufre un proceso de adaptación para permitirle habitar ese espacio físico alterado que es el propio cuerpo. La tesis que mantiene el autor es que no se trata tanto de «curarse» de la enfermedad, pues algunas de las que aquí aparecen, como el autismo, el síndrome de Tourette, la acromatopsia, no admiten el concepto de curación, sino de aprender a vivir con ella, a pesar de lo grotescos que puedan ser algunos síntomas de lo diferente que pueda sentirse el paciente respecto a los así denominados normales. Todos estos pacientes encuentran en el doctor Sacks no sólo un médico atento, intuitivo y perspicaz, sino a alguien que comparte sus vidas y aplica el método empático de investigación que G. K. Chesterton presentara a través de su personaje más famoso, el padre Brown. En estas siete parábolas sobre la mutabilidad de la condición humana, Oliver Sacks demuestra otra vez su excepcional talento como narrador, su vastísima cultura y su capacidad para hacer que estos personajes a primera vista estrambóticos acaben pareciéndonos familiares y normales.

Un antropólogo en Marte

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