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The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

And Other Clinical Tales

By Oliver Sacks

(100)

| Audio Cassette | 9781559943680

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Book Description

In his most extraordinary book, "one of the great clinical writers of the 20th century" (The New York Times) recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat telContinue

In his most extraordinary book, "one of the great clinical writers of the 20th century" (The New York Times) recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; who are stricken with violent tics and grimaces or who shout involuntary obscenities; whose limbs have become alien; who have been dismissed as retarded yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.

If inconceivably strange, these brilliant tales remain, in Dr. Sacks's splendid and sympathetic telling, deeply human. They are studies of life struggling against incredible adversity, and they enable us to enter the world of the neurologically impaired, to imagine with our hearts what it must be to live and feel as they do. A great healer, Sacks never loses sight of medicine's ultimate responsibility: "the suffering, afflicted, fighting human subject."

Critics

  • Outpouchings

    It could be said that Oliver Sacks put neuropathology on the literary map. His first book Awakenings, about the stunning effects of the drug L-Dopa on patients afflicted with a form of Parkinsonism, attracted considerable critical acclaim from the li ... (read full critics)

    lrb published on Sat, 4 Sep 2010

  • The Sixth Sense

    Dr. Oliver Sacks is a British-trained neurologist who now practices in New York, where he is professor of clinical neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. With his earlier book, Awakenings (1973), which described the remarkable effect o ... (read full critics)

    nybooks published on Sun, 22 Aug 2010

8 Reviews

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  • I have very mixed feelings after having closed this book. Maybe it will be worthwhile coming back for a second reading during holidays.
    On one hand I am neither a neurologist nor a student entitled to give a "judgment". On the other hand I'd like to express my feelings as an amateur...
    Dr. Sacks ex ... (continue)

    I have very mixed feelings after having closed this book. Maybe it will be worthwhile coming back for a second reading during holidays.
    On one hand I am neither a neurologist nor a student entitled to give a "judgment". On the other hand I'd like to express my feelings as an amateur...
    Dr. Sacks exposes a collection of clinical cases related to very unusual neurological cases he met during his career: in all, more than twenty cases. He gives a rationale by dividing cases into four sections. The first section is the most famous case, dealing with deficits; it contains a clinical story giving the title to the book, "the man who mistook his wife for a hat".
    As I delved into the book I started to feel sort of uneasy in Dr. Sacks' circus with due respect for the famous neurologist and his patients. Also, the level of descriptions varied from popularization to informal communication for Dr. Sacks' peers.

    The last section ("The World of the Simple") is five star and restored my admiration for Dr. Sacks (as a writer) , since he gracefully led me by the hand into the world of the so-called "retarded", showing how to approach such cases with a different point of view.

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    Plucino said on Apr 12, 2012 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

  • I found this book very very difficult to read. Patient accounts were interspersed (rather generously) with philosophical reflections and the author's opinions. Although this was not a regretful read; i would certainly not be re-reading it, nor will i be getting another of his book. It took me over a ... (continue)

    I found this book very very difficult to read. Patient accounts were interspersed (rather generously) with philosophical reflections and the author's opinions. Although this was not a regretful read; i would certainly not be re-reading it, nor will i be getting another of his book. It took me over a year and a half just to get through this book because the language was quite dry and the concepts quite abstract.

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    The Underdog said on Oct 15, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

  • Brilliant !
    I loved this book even if i'm not in the field. In addition, the novel left me hungry to know more about the fascinating world of the brain.
    Sacks never loses sight of the person, of the soul,
    that he treats.
    Very enligtening and touching, especially the story
    of "Jimmie".

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    Middlemarch said on Sep 28, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

  • An amazing set of tales. It shows the extraordinary ways the brain works, but most of all it shows the ways people cope with their bodies and lifes when faced with a brain that doesn't work anymore as supposed to.

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    xpro said on Jun 1, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

  • honestly, i read this book because paul draper read it while he wrote songs in Six. it's so difficult for me, lots of neurology terms. however, it introduces a lot of amazing facts on neutrology and pathology. the brain is really a mysterious thing.

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    hermia said on Aug 21, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

  • Fascinating, eye-opening, entertaining, mind-boggling... beautifully written... a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction romp through some of neurology's most bizarre disorders...

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    NetLeaper said on Mar 5, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

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