Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales

Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks

22 reviews

dev921's review against another edition

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informative fast-paced

3.0

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jetpackdracula's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

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hanjackson's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

2.25

This is a difficult one to rate. It has almost 40 years of raving reviews and is on the '100 books to read before you die' scratch off I have had for 10 years now... But part of me thinks this is on the poster for genre diversity. The one word I can think to describe this nowadays: dated.

I can see why in 1985, Sacks' time as a neurologist and his stories were taboo. However in 2024 it is lacking. The dated language and words when speaking of certain conditions makes it a hard to listen to the book, even though the words we see as insults now were clinically accepted in the 80s.

Definitely an insightful look into the medical past but as a book, hard to make it through -- especially when comparing it to the modern stars of the medical memoir such as Adam Kay and Kathryn Mannix. The book needed to be a tad more self-aware.

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clarabooksit's review against another edition

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Not what I expected. While the cases are interesting, the writing is too clinical and esoteric for me, and I thought there would be more exploration of diagnoses and trying to help the patients but it’s really just “here’s another oddity.”

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pinkpanther's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

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kat_smith24's review against another edition

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hopeful informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

Though the language is outdated and paternalistic, this book offers a surprisingly nuanced approach to (at the time) rarer neurological disorders.

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lovelymisanthrope's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

I received this as a gift after stumbling across the title while working at a university bookstore. I thought the content sounded fascinating.
"The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" is a collection of different case studies from renowned neuroscientist Oliver Sacks. Each chapter chronicles a different patient suffering with a different type of memory-related issue.
I really enjoyed how this book was organized and presented. There were sections that grouped related cases together, and there was an introduction for each section to give a high-level overview of what was going to be discussed. Each case and patient were discussed thoughtfully; however, it is quickly evident that this book was written many years ago because some of the terminology used felt insensitive. The mind is a wild and fascinating place, and I think it is riveting to learn about different instances of medical anomalies.
If you are interested in or studying the mind, I recommend this work, and I will certainly keep Oliver Sacks's work in mind to pick up in the future.

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amyodell's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

3.0

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ominousevent's review against another edition

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It was interesting to learn a bit about things that can happen to brains, but I really don’t like the way Sacks talks about his patients (as if they are specimens, in many cases not really fully human), and some of his theories seem to be supported by nothing more than his affection for his own ideas. Not recommended.

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funky_reads's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative slow-paced

1.75

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