Oliver Sacks
Books by Oliver Sacks
“I became interested in neuroscience was because of the way Oliver Sacks uses stories to illuminate science.” Read more...
The best books on Emotion and the Brain
Morten Kringelbach, Medical Scientist
“I must have first read this book in the early eighties, and found it – like a lot of Sacks’s writing – absolutely fascinating. Not just because of the philosophical and scientific perspectives that he is involved in, but because of his involuntary self-characterisation. I used some of Sacks’s modes and mannerisms quite shamelessly as one of the sources for my character Zack Busner, who is a repeat presence in my fictions.” Read more...
Will Self on Literary Influences
Will Self, Novelist
No list of physician writers would be complete without the man so often described as “the poet laureate of medicine.” In this 1973 book, one of his best known works—later adapted both as a play by Harold Pinter, and a Hollywood movie starring Robert De Niro—Sacks relates his efforts to bring sleeping sickness patients back to consciousness after decades in a catatonic stupor. Also unmissable from Sacks’ back catalogue are The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars
From our article Books like This is Going to Hurt
“Sacks’s books are an inspiration to me in bringing together scientific and philosophical reflections on various human conditions.” Read more...
The best books on The Art of Observation
Alexandra Horowitz, Psychologist
“What would that be like? What would it be like to be unable to lay down any new memories, to think it’s 1945 all the time and everybody you meet is new? It’s fascinating to imagine, and I feel a lot of sympathy for the Mariner even though he doesn’t know how bad he has it.” Read more...
The best books on Philosophical Wonder
Eric Schwitzgebel, Philosopher
Interviews where books by Oliver Sacks were recommended
The best books on Philosophical Wonder, recommended by Eric Schwitzgebel
We think of philosophy as a discipline that interrogates complex dilemmas—the nature of will, right and wrong, human freedom—with logic, reasoned thought and argument. But what do the moments in philosophy that make us stop and look outside ourselves have to teach us? According to Eric Schwitzgebel, philosopher at the University of California Riverside, they can open up worlds of fresh possibility. Here he recommends five books of philosophical wonder.
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1
Studies in Hysteria
by Josef Breuer & Sigmund Freud -
2
Medical Muses: Hysteria in Nineteenth-Century Paris
by Asti Hustvedt -
3
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
by Oliver Sacks -
4
Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology
by Paul Broks -
5
The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves
by Stephen Grosz
The best books on Psychosomatic Illness, recommended by Suzanne O'Sullivan
The best books on Psychosomatic Illness, recommended by Suzanne O'Sullivan
We still understand very little about the workings of the brain, and yet we dismiss the tricks it can play on us as undeserving of the same sympathy as physical illness. Neurologist and author Suzanne O’Sullivan recommends the best books on psychosomatic illness.
The best books on Surrealism and the Brain, recommended by Bradley Voytek
Neurological disorders lead to far more surreal stories than those we find in science fiction, argues University of California neuroscientist Bradley Voytek.
The best books on Child Psychology and Mental Health, recommended by Tanya Byron
Clinical psychologist, author and broadcaster discusses the stigmas attached to mental health problems, and asks whether, as a society, we are really doing what’s best for our children
The best books on The Art of Observation, recommended by Alexandra Horowitz
How much do we take in of the world around us? You can tell a lot more about your surroundings than you realise, if you only know how and where to look, as the psychologist explains
Will Self on Literary Influences
Conventional prose fiction falls short of the mark, says English author Will Self. He tells us about his modernist novel Umbrella, what the real character of London is, and why he can’t stand the Olympics
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1
The Children's Book
by A.S. Byatt -
2
On the Move: A Life
by Oliver Sacks -
3
Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation
by David Huron -
4
Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos In the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life
by Steven Strogatz -
5
The Well-Tuned Brain: Neuroscience and the Life Well Lived
by Peter C. Whybrow
The best books on Emotion and the Brain, recommended by Morten Kringelbach
The best books on Emotion and the Brain, recommended by Morten Kringelbach
We live at a time of unprecedented insight into the workings of our own minds. We can use this knowledge to improve both ourselves and humanity, argues the neuroscientist.
