An anthropologist on mars - Oliver Sacks

To these seven paradoxical tales of neurological disorder and creativity, Oliver Sacks brings the profound compassion and ceaseless curiosity that made Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat international bestsellers.

He transports us into the uncanny worlds of his subjects, including an artist who

loses his ability to see (or even imagine) color; a surgeon who performs delicate operations in spite of the compulsive tics and outbursts of Tourette's syndrome; and Temple Grandin, an autistic professor who holds a Ph.D. in animal science but is so bewildered by the complexity of human emotion that she feels "like an anthropologist on Mars." Through these extraordinary people, Sacks explores what it is to feel, to sense, to remember-to be, ultimately, a coherent self in the world.

"A multifaceted masterpiece... a joy to read... Sacks invites hope where hope has been proscribed, an act that by itself makes this book priceless." — Chicago Tribune