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allytron3000's review against another edition
4.0
Loved this. It's nice to see a scientist/practioner who also has a skill for telling a good story. Very interesting. Sometimes it is a bit low on explanations, but this may be because it was written in the 70s, and neurology has come a long way since then.
runjnee's review against another edition
4.0
A very thought-provoking book indeed. The language is not the most accessible (feeling outdated) and the content is clearly not meant for a "lay person" as technical terms are thrown about freely (and Mr. Sacks' 4 gods of neurology / neuropsychology are constantly name-dropped), but the content is fascinating. It makes you think about what really defines us as individuals, and the impact of even the slightest thing going wrong in your circuitry.
The book seemed like a random collection of intriguing cases until the final section: "The World of the Simple". I felt like this really was the heart of the book. There is a palpable warmth infused into the narration of the stories of these people, and a certain fondness when referring to them. I enjoyed this section the most, all the way from Rebecca to José and the end of the book. Definitely worth reading at least once, with the generosity to forgive the author for being a product of his time.
The book seemed like a random collection of intriguing cases until the final section: "The World of the Simple". I felt like this really was the heart of the book. There is a palpable warmth infused into the narration of the stories of these people, and a certain fondness when referring to them. I enjoyed this section the most, all the way from Rebecca to José and the end of the book. Definitely worth reading at least once, with the generosity to forgive the author for being a product of his time.
graciegrace1178's review against another edition
5.0
review in progress. Dates estimated
PT: books that got me out of a reading slump, books that changed the way I see the world, Jordan Peterson book list, psych books, books that encouraged further research
WIL
1) synesthesia REPRESENTATION BABEY! (Even if it's not explicitly addressed) Look me in the eyes and tell me that every single person in this book is not a synesthete. Can you? Can you look me in the eyes and lie?
2) "They do not approach numbers as likely most calculators do" HOLD THE FRICKIN PHONE THAT'S SUCH A GAME-CHANGING QUOTE. Because,, because,, god this is hard to explain OKAY. So human educational development works in conjunction with the observable environment right? I don't have a source for that atm,* but for the purposes of this, imma treat that as an axiom. So, SO it would track that in a generation that grows up with math being fundamentally tied to *computers,* that is machines that treat variables as a pinpoint to be manipulated through mechanisms and processes which can be recorded on paper or in the digital record, this generation will come to think of numbers strictly in that sense. But ohmygod this gentleman, this fella Sacks! He comes from the days of Yore, pre-easy-access strong calculators. He had to look up prime numbers in a BOOK for goodness' sake. He has a fundamentally different way of seeing numbers already with that barrier difference. The way he presents conversations about numbers is so distinctly Old Academia. It has an element of the qualitative embedded into his speech. Numbers are numbers to him, but they're also tagged with formulaic information that can be molded like putty in different circumstances. That's not a feature you see often in modern academics of the sciences. In stem numbers are numbers are numbers. They're components that *represent* a whole or an external concept but have no meaning independently. The difference in mathematical speech between Sacks and modern scientific writing is staggering.
From this, consider how one might view numbers in a different context entirely! In a world where the concept of a calculator (technological or otherwise) is non-existent! Where, in order to work with numbers, one treats them as *people* with their own inherent characteristics and preferences and dislikes. Personified numbers rather than the flat pinpoints in space as we see them now. Yes, I know I need to read Flatland and The Joy of X yea yea yea I'll get there eventually.) POINT BEING! If we take out the cultural context that pushes the presentation of mathematics within the current calculator framework.... that could really change things. Just, in the most general sense, could change things. I'm- this probably makes no sense bc it's nearly one AM but I'm OBSESSED with the potential here.
UPDATE: Wait ha,I paused the audiobook before Sacks even mentioned the friend thing (in brief)! Same wavelength Sacks. NOT IN BRIEF AFTER ALL. IM OSBESSED DID I NOT JUST SAY ALL THIS?? NUMBERS ARE FRIENDS. IM SOSIGHHESGOWJOJ.
*source is that I remember reading it Somewhere in a Book By Someone in 2019
3) The mathematical genius twins. Playing their game of prime numbers with twenty digits. They "see" the numbers right? They have this sort of intuitive sense about them? And same goes for that one dude (didn't catch his name in the audiobook) who constructed endless times tables with prime numbers. And then there are the folks who have that internal sense of harmony and perfect pitch. See, see, the thing that really gets me about this is the notion that individuals *independently of each other* have the capacity to learn the material through a sort of intrinsic method of calculation that cannot be explicitly translated into observational skills. This is the world of the xNxx (or, more probably, the world of the Ni dominant.) And what is most striking about this notion is the *implication for education.*
Education, in America at least, treats kids like there is no such intuition about the world. Everything must be spoonfed because children are, according to the curriculum, blank slates upon which teachers should paint their knowledge. Kids hold the canvas up to the teacher, teacher drags a brush across it. But...BUT the fascinating thing that Sacks brings up is that maybe, MAYBE, certain humans (all humans?) have the capacity to provide paint from the backside of the canvas, as it were. They don't need to paint. They can etch designs from their own perspective onto the canvas and create a pattern all their own that, remarkably, achieves the same end effect as direct teacher methods, creates art. This is a bad metaphor for the more objective fields like math but STILL.
What I'm saying is maybe the observational skills approach is only half the story. Maybe there's something to be learned from a more intuitive method of education in which problems are presented and students answer from their gut responses and then go about describing the ways in which they came to their own conclusions. It's still observational in its own way, but it utilizes the subject *as* a subject of education rather than a changeable variable to be acted upon. The kids are treated as a source of internal education rather than a machine that should receive information and spout it back out again. What I'm saying is, education could be improved, and I think Sacks might be on to something (in a very roundabout way.)
(Hey, Montessori schools, any of you reading this? Y'all wanna maybe hire me based on this analysis???)
4) ROMANTIC SCIENCE AH! and FROM THE BEGINNING WOW
WIDL:
1) “Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic” = filed under sentences that rEALLY get under my skin. He’s RIGHT but also KCNOAHXJW. I mean that’s like saying a person is nothing but atoms. Yea it’s true but also whole is more than the sum of its parts bro.
PT: books that got me out of a reading slump, books that changed the way I see the world, Jordan Peterson book list, psych books, books that encouraged further research
WIL
1) synesthesia REPRESENTATION BABEY! (Even if it's not explicitly addressed) Look me in the eyes and tell me that every single person in this book is not a synesthete. Can you? Can you look me in the eyes and lie?
2) "They do not approach numbers as likely most calculators do" HOLD THE FRICKIN PHONE THAT'S SUCH A GAME-CHANGING QUOTE. Because,, because,, god this is hard to explain OKAY. So human educational development works in conjunction with the observable environment right? I don't have a source for that atm,* but for the purposes of this, imma treat that as an axiom. So, SO it would track that in a generation that grows up with math being fundamentally tied to *computers,* that is machines that treat variables as a pinpoint to be manipulated through mechanisms and processes which can be recorded on paper or in the digital record, this generation will come to think of numbers strictly in that sense. But ohmygod this gentleman, this fella Sacks! He comes from the days of Yore, pre-easy-access strong calculators. He had to look up prime numbers in a BOOK for goodness' sake. He has a fundamentally different way of seeing numbers already with that barrier difference. The way he presents conversations about numbers is so distinctly Old Academia. It has an element of the qualitative embedded into his speech. Numbers are numbers to him, but they're also tagged with formulaic information that can be molded like putty in different circumstances. That's not a feature you see often in modern academics of the sciences. In stem numbers are numbers are numbers. They're components that *represent* a whole or an external concept but have no meaning independently. The difference in mathematical speech between Sacks and modern scientific writing is staggering.
From this, consider how one might view numbers in a different context entirely! In a world where the concept of a calculator (technological or otherwise) is non-existent! Where, in order to work with numbers, one treats them as *people* with their own inherent characteristics and preferences and dislikes. Personified numbers rather than the flat pinpoints in space as we see them now. Yes, I know I need to read Flatland and The Joy of X yea yea yea I'll get there eventually.) POINT BEING! If we take out the cultural context that pushes the presentation of mathematics within the current calculator framework.... that could really change things. Just, in the most general sense, could change things. I'm- this probably makes no sense bc it's nearly one AM but I'm OBSESSED with the potential here.
UPDATE: Wait ha,I paused the audiobook before Sacks even mentioned the friend thing (in brief)! Same wavelength Sacks. NOT IN BRIEF AFTER ALL. IM OSBESSED DID I NOT JUST SAY ALL THIS?? NUMBERS ARE FRIENDS. IM SOSIGHHESGOWJOJ.
*source is that I remember reading it Somewhere in a Book By Someone in 2019
3) The mathematical genius twins. Playing their game of prime numbers with twenty digits. They "see" the numbers right? They have this sort of intuitive sense about them? And same goes for that one dude (didn't catch his name in the audiobook) who constructed endless times tables with prime numbers. And then there are the folks who have that internal sense of harmony and perfect pitch. See, see, the thing that really gets me about this is the notion that individuals *independently of each other* have the capacity to learn the material through a sort of intrinsic method of calculation that cannot be explicitly translated into observational skills. This is the world of the xNxx (or, more probably, the world of the Ni dominant.) And what is most striking about this notion is the *implication for education.*
Education, in America at least, treats kids like there is no such intuition about the world. Everything must be spoonfed because children are, according to the curriculum, blank slates upon which teachers should paint their knowledge. Kids hold the canvas up to the teacher, teacher drags a brush across it. But...BUT the fascinating thing that Sacks brings up is that maybe, MAYBE, certain humans (all humans?) have the capacity to provide paint from the backside of the canvas, as it were. They don't need to paint. They can etch designs from their own perspective onto the canvas and create a pattern all their own that, remarkably, achieves the same end effect as direct teacher methods, creates art. This is a bad metaphor for the more objective fields like math but STILL.
What I'm saying is maybe the observational skills approach is only half the story. Maybe there's something to be learned from a more intuitive method of education in which problems are presented and students answer from their gut responses and then go about describing the ways in which they came to their own conclusions. It's still observational in its own way, but it utilizes the subject *as* a subject of education rather than a changeable variable to be acted upon. The kids are treated as a source of internal education rather than a machine that should receive information and spout it back out again. What I'm saying is, education could be improved, and I think Sacks might be on to something (in a very roundabout way.)
(Hey, Montessori schools, any of you reading this? Y'all wanna maybe hire me based on this analysis???)
4) ROMANTIC SCIENCE AH! and FROM THE BEGINNING WOW
WIDL:
1) “Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic” = filed under sentences that rEALLY get under my skin. He’s RIGHT but also KCNOAHXJW. I mean that’s like saying a person is nothing but atoms. Yea it’s true but also whole is more than the sum of its parts bro.
ellixs's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
blymanor's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
A collection of case studies viewed through a slightly outdated lens (that may have been progressive for its time). An interesting look back in time
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism and Chronic illness
Minor: Medical content
theofficeflan's review against another edition
3.0
I found this book interesting in theory but pretty unapproachable and difficult to read. Sacks uses way too much academic jargon and assumes the reader has previous knowledge in neuroscience and psychology.
slane4nik's review against another edition
5.0
A deeply compassionate book about the beautiful in the broken and the mysterious in the known. A look beyond disease into the human soul.
thaurisil's review against another edition
5.0
Arrogant, confusing, pretentious - I see these words in other reviews on the site and wonder if people are reading the same book as me.
I loved this book. Oliver Sacks is a neurologist, but he does not work with brains. He works with people. He truly cares for his patients, and the knowledge that he cannot properly treat most of them does not deter him from trying desperately to understand what makes them tick. He does his best to understand the thoughts, emotions and desires of his patients, all the while knowing that he never can. With deep sensitivity, he goes far beyond the role of a neurologist, doing his best to provide for his patients' emotional and mental wellbeing, and expressing genuine regret when he fails in this.
The friend who lent me this book told me that I would love the last section on the autistic. It was certainly interesting, the most eye-opening being a pair of twins who live and breathe numbers. They cannot do simple arithmetic, yet they can tell you on which day of the week any date within an 80,000 year timespan falls. Not only can they identify prime numbers, they savour the numbers. Sacks postulates that they see the harmony of the world in numbers, and it is such ideas on how those with neurological disorders perceive the world that make the book shine. The twins are later forced into pseudo-normal lives apart from each other and consequently lose their ability to 'see' numbers, raising the question of how much talent we lose in conforming.
But my favourite stories were of two men who had Korsakov's, and had no short-term memory, although they remembered incidents up to a certain point in the past (one thought he was a 19 year old living in 1945). I recently read Stiff by Mary Roach, and at one point she asked where the soul is located (heart, brain or liver?). Reading this book, I see a more pertinent question - what makes up the soul? Without memory, the men have no relation to the real world and cannot form relationships with real people. They cannot understand that they have a disorder because they have no memory of the disorder. Yet Sacks quotes A.R. Luria - "... a man does not consist of memory alone. He has feeling, will, sensibilities, moral being..." One man displays his soul in Chapel, and in his appreciation of art and music. The other man though is detached, disconnected - he shows no soul.
It is stories like these, some uplifting, some merely interesting, but many tragic, that allow us to enter the real world of Sacks' patients, and not just a superficial neurological world. He has seen an impressive range of disorders, and has studied many in-depth, such that the book never gets boring.
This book was written in 1985 - I am curious if anything has changed in the world of neurology since then. The idea of the autistic having remarkable talents seems to be more well-known than it was back then, but I wonder if other changes have been made, or if any research has been done in response to this book.
I loved this book. Oliver Sacks is a neurologist, but he does not work with brains. He works with people. He truly cares for his patients, and the knowledge that he cannot properly treat most of them does not deter him from trying desperately to understand what makes them tick. He does his best to understand the thoughts, emotions and desires of his patients, all the while knowing that he never can. With deep sensitivity, he goes far beyond the role of a neurologist, doing his best to provide for his patients' emotional and mental wellbeing, and expressing genuine regret when he fails in this.
The friend who lent me this book told me that I would love the last section on the autistic. It was certainly interesting, the most eye-opening being a pair of twins who live and breathe numbers. They cannot do simple arithmetic, yet they can tell you on which day of the week any date within an 80,000 year timespan falls. Not only can they identify prime numbers, they savour the numbers. Sacks postulates that they see the harmony of the world in numbers, and it is such ideas on how those with neurological disorders perceive the world that make the book shine. The twins are later forced into pseudo-normal lives apart from each other and consequently lose their ability to 'see' numbers, raising the question of how much talent we lose in conforming.
But my favourite stories were of two men who had Korsakov's, and had no short-term memory, although they remembered incidents up to a certain point in the past (one thought he was a 19 year old living in 1945). I recently read Stiff by Mary Roach, and at one point she asked where the soul is located (heart, brain or liver?). Reading this book, I see a more pertinent question - what makes up the soul? Without memory, the men have no relation to the real world and cannot form relationships with real people. They cannot understand that they have a disorder because they have no memory of the disorder. Yet Sacks quotes A.R. Luria - "... a man does not consist of memory alone. He has feeling, will, sensibilities, moral being..." One man displays his soul in Chapel, and in his appreciation of art and music. The other man though is detached, disconnected - he shows no soul.
It is stories like these, some uplifting, some merely interesting, but many tragic, that allow us to enter the real world of Sacks' patients, and not just a superficial neurological world. He has seen an impressive range of disorders, and has studied many in-depth, such that the book never gets boring.
This book was written in 1985 - I am curious if anything has changed in the world of neurology since then. The idea of the autistic having remarkable talents seems to be more well-known than it was back then, but I wonder if other changes have been made, or if any research has been done in response to this book.
ethanjarrell's review against another edition
5.0
Typically, books or stories like these are provided on youtube channels meant to sensationalize an interesting story. The author here provides these stories and clinical tales that helps the reader appreciate the humanity and the suffering of those that might be different than we are.