Oliver Sacks Libros

Los lectores conocen a Oliver Sacks por sus fascinantes libros sobre los misterios de la mente a partir de asombrosos casos psiquiátricos. Ahora, aplica su perspicacia y humanismo a su propia vida, ofreciendo un ejercicio de introspección que revela una peripecia vital intensa y compleja. Relata su marcha de Inglaterra y llegada a Estados Unidos, su confesión de homosexualidad a su madre y su reacción, así como su relación con su hermano esquizofrénico. Comparte su primera experiencia sexual en Ámsterdam, su última relación sexual al cumplir cuarenta y su posterior celibato voluntario. Reflexiona sobre el sexo y el amor como motores de la vida, sus inicios como psiquiatra en los años sesenta y sus investigaciones sobre una enfermedad olvidada, así como sus intensas relaciones con pacientes y su abuso de anfetaminas. También menciona su amistad con poetas como Auden y Thom Gunn, y su fugaz relación con figuras como Robert De Niro y Robin Williams. Habla de su afición a las motos y viajes nocturnos por el desierto de California, así como su interés en la halterofilia, el culturismo y la natación. En suma, es una autobiografía emocionante y desgarradamente honesta que refleja su aventura intelectual.

El hombre que confundió a su mujer con un sombrero, una extraordinaria revelación, se convirtió inmediatamente en un clásico y consagró a Oliver Sacks como "uno de los grandes escritores clínicos del siglo". En este libro el autor narra veinte historiales médicos de pacientes perdidos en el mundo extraño y aparentemente irremediable de las enfermedades neurológicas. Se trata de casos de individuos aquejados por inauditas aberraciones de la percepción que han perdido la memoria, y con ella, la mayor parte de su pasado, que son incapaces de reconocer a sus familiares o los objetos cotidanos que han sido descartados como retrasados mentales y que, sin embargo, poseen insólitos dones artísticos o científicos.

En esta colección de ensayos, cinco autores de prestigio mundial exploran los aspectos olvidados y desconocidos, o deliberadamente omitidos, de la historia de la ciencia. El libro nació de una idea original de Oliver Sacks, que quería homenajear a sir Humphry Davy en su doble aspecto de eminente químico y notable poeta, y fue propiciado por una iniciativa conjunta de la New York Public Library y The New York Review of Books.

Oliver Sacks died in August 2015 at his home in Greenwich Village, surrounded by his close friends and family. He was 82. He spent his final days doing what he loved: playing the piano, swimming, enjoying smoked salmon - and writing. As Dr Sacks looked back over his long, adventurous life his final thoughts were of gratitude. In a series of remarkable, beautifully written and uplifting meditations, in Gratitude Dr Sacks reflects on and gives thanks for a life well lived, and expresses his thoughts on growing old, facing terminal cancer and reaching the end. I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and travelled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.

The letters of one of the greatest observers of the human species, revealing his passion for life and work, friendship and art, medicine and society, and the richness of his relationships with friends, family, and fellow intellectuals over the decades, collected here for the first time.

The idea that some people think differently, though no less humanely, is explored in this inspiring book. Temple Grandin is a gifted and successful animal scientist, and she is autistic. Here she tells us what it was like to grow up perceiving the world in an entirely concrete and visual way - somewhat akin to how animals think, she believes - and how it feels now. Through her finely observed understanding of the workings of her mind she gives us an invaluable insight into autism and its challenges.

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE NBC SERIES BRILLIANT MINDS • From the bestselling author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat • Fascinating portraits of neurological disorder in which men, women, and one extraordinary child emerge as brilliantly adaptive personalities, whose conditions have not so much debilitated them as ushered them into another reality. Here are seven detailed narratives of neurological patients, including a surgeon consumed by the compulsive tics of Tourette's syndrome unless he is operating; an artist who loses all sense of color in a car accident, but finds a new sensibility and creative power in black and white; and an autistic professor who cannot decipher the simplest social exchange between humans, but has built a career out of her intuitive understanding of animal behavior. Sacks combines the well honed mind of an academician with the verve of a true storyteller.

By the author of Seeing Voices', this is a narrative about the awakening of 20 patients from a zombie-like state they had suffered for over 40 years. A new drug meant the sleeping sickness disease was now treatable. Sacks tells the history, offers his own observations and the patients' reactions.

A neurologist investigates the world of the deaf, examining their past and present treatment at the hands of society, and assesses the value and significance of sign language.

From the best-selling author of Gratitude and On the Move, a final volume of essays that showcase Sacks's broad range of interests-from his passion for ferns, swimming, and horsetails, to his final case histories exploring schizophrenia, dementia, and Alzheimer's. Oliver Sacks, scientist and storyteller, is beloved by readers for his neurological case histories and his fascination and familiarity with human behavior at its most unexpected and unfamiliar. Everything in Its Place is a celebration of Sacks's myriad interests, told with his characteristic compassion and erudition, and in his luminous prose.

‘A humane discourse on the fragility of our minds, of the bodies that give rise to them, and of the world they create for us.’ Daily Telegraph Oliver Sacks’ compassionate tales of people struggling to adapt to different neurological conditions have fundamentally changed the way we understand our own minds. In Musicophilia, he examines the powers of music through the individual experiences of patients, musicians and everyday people – those struck by affliction, unusual talent and even, in one case, by lightning – to show not only that music occupies more areas of the brain than language does, but also that it can calm and organize, torment and heal. Always wise and compellingly readable, these stories alter our conception of who we are and how we function, and show us an essential part of what it is to be human. ‘Fascinating. Music, as Sacks explains, “can pierce the heart directly”. And this is the truth that he so brilliantly focuses upon – that music saves, consoles and nourishes us’ Daily Mail ‘Irresistible, astonishing and moving’ Spectator ‘Deeply warm and sympathetic’ Guardian

A memoir of the scientific wonder of youth by the distinguished neurologist and author describes his fascination with metals, gasses, and chemicals, especially "Uncle Tungsten," and with unravelling the complex mysteries of the world around him.

The River of Consciousness is a remarkable culmination of a lifetime's research into the way the brain works by the celebrated late neurologist Oliver Sacks.

Drawing on a wealth of clinical examples from his own patients as well as historical and literary descriptions, Oliver Sacks investigates the fundamental differences and similarities of many sorts of hallucinations.

A study of the residents of the South Pacific atoll of Pingelap. This investigates the causes and effects of the high incidence of colour blindness amongst the population.

The bestselling author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat describes how we experience the visual world.In The Mind's Eye, Oliver Sacks tells the stories of people who are able to navigate the world and communicate with others despite losing what many of us consider indispensable senses and abilities: the capacity to recognise faces, the sense of three-dimensional space, the ability to read, the sense of sight. For all of these people, the challenge is to adapt to a radically new way of being in the world, and The Mind's Eye is testament to the myriad ways that we, as humans, are capable of rising to this challenge. As such, it's also testament to the human power of creativity and adaptation.

'Sacks has written a book about a leg, his leg; but it is a story about the nature of selfhood - a narrative comparable to Conrad's " The Secret Sharer"' "New York Review of Books " 'Losing the use of a limb is a catastrophe, and it needed a thoughtful essay written about it. This is it. It is more than that. Oliver Sacks is a neurologist of wide lay reading, a man of humane eloquence, a genuine communicator aware of the damnable rift that subsists between doctor and patient. Its value lies in its willingness to combine the technical and the demonic, to admit poetry and philosophy and the religious impulse. It is also intensely personal, but it affirms the community of human experience' Anthony Burgess, "Observer" 'It is in every way a marvellously rich and thoughtful tale. Dr Sacks has, once again, emphatically shown how much there is still to be learned from painstakingly observed and chronicled case history' " Sunday Telegraph" 'Dr Sacks reviews his predicament in exact clinical, emotional and philosophical terms. No one has described that famous condition so well before. A remarkable, generous, vivid and thoroughly intelligent piece of writing' "Sunday Times"

The best-selling author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks is well know as an explorer of the human mind—a neurologist with a gift for complex, insightful portrayals of people and their conditions. However, he is also a card-carrying member of the American Fern Society, and since childhood has been fascinated by these primitive plants and their ability to survive and adapt in many climates.Oaxaca Journal is Sacks's spellbinding account of his trip with a group of fellow fern enthusiasts to the beautiful, history-steeped province of Oaxaca, Mexico. Bringing together Sacks's passion for natural history and the richness of human culture with his sharp eye for detail, Oaxaca Journal is a captivating evocation of a place, its plants, its people, and its myriad wonders.

"Balanced, authoritative . . . brilliant."  --The London Times "Written by one of the great clinical writers of the twentieth century, Migraine . . . should be read as much for its brilliant insights into the nature of our mental functioning as for its discussion of the migraine."  --The New York Times Book Review The many manifestations of migraine can vary dramatically from one patient to another, even within the same patient at different times. Among the most compelling and perplexing of these symptoms are the strange visual hallucinations and distortions of space, time, and body image which migraineurs sometimes experience. Portrayals of these uncanny states have found their way into many works of art, from the heavenly visions of Hildegard von Bingen to Alice in Wonderland. Dr. Oliver Sacks argues that migraine cannot be understood simply as an illness, but must be viewed as a complex condition with a unique role to play in each individual's life. "I am sure . . . that any layman who is interested in the relation between the body and mind . . . will find the book as fascinating as I have."  --W. H. Auden, The New York Review of Books

Why do people have near-death experiences? Are there physical explanations for out-of-body sensations and tunnels of light? What about moments of spiritual ecstasy? In this exploration, a neurologist with three decades of experience examines the biology behind human spirituality, deconstructing the spiritual self and uncovering its origins in primitive areas of the brain. Through revolutionary studies on near-death experiences, it is revealed that spiritual experiences are incidental products of various neurological processes acting independently. When we feel close to God or sense the presence of departed relatives, we may believe we are standing at the border of this world and the next. However, the reality is different: our brain function resembles a Cubist painting, and the experiences we consider the height of humanity are produced by primal reflexes. This journey into the borderlands of consciousness offers a comprehensive, empirically-tested, peer-reviewed examination of our capacity for near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, and mystical states induced by hallucinogenic drugs.

Left for dead in a dumpster, private investigator Benny Cooperman becomes his own client in his most puzzling mystery yet. Benny is recovering in a Toronto hospital from a serious blow to the head. He has a condition called alexia sine agraphia; in layman's terms, it means he can still write but cannot read. And his memory has been affected too: Although he can quote lines from his high-school production of Twelfth Night, he finds himself brushing his teeth with his shaving cream. Even his girlfriend's name—Anna Abraham—continues to elude him. When Benny learns that he was found unconscious beside a dead woman, he figures he must have been close to solving a case. With Anna working as field agent and two Toronto cops reluctantly sharing their discoveries, Benny pieces together the events that led to a murder—and his own injuries.

Ve své nejzásadnější knize neurolog Oliver Sacks přibližuje neobyčejné příběhy dvaceti pacientů dlouhodobě žijících v nemocnici pro chronicky nemocné. Tito lidé přežili pozapomenutou velkou epidemii spavé nemoci, jež ve dvacátých letech minulého století zasáhla celý svět. Podivuhodné explozivní probuzení ze somnambulního, často absolutně nehybného a na vnějším okolí zcela závislého stavu, ve kterém přežívali několik desetiletí, umožní až použití nového léku, L-DOPY. Dozvíme se tak podrobně a z první ruky (neboť autor vyznává osobní přístup a setkání s pacienty tváří v tvář), jaký byl jejich život předtím, jak absolutně "zpomalení" byli, a jak se postupně probouzeli, stávali aktivnějšími, doslova "zrychlenějšími", vraceli se do života, ve světě, který byl pro ně úplně nový a cizí, a jak se vypořádávali s leckdy druhým pólem: tiky, nutkáním, patologickou euforií. Osudy jednotlivých pacientů se liší, jak co se týče rodinné situace, věku, kdy je nemoc postihla, tak i anamnézou či reakcí na lék.

While still a student, Freud published his first research papers on neurology, showcasing his early scientific career that began with physiological studies on eels and progressed to the nervous system of the river crayfish. Confronted by a physicalistic-scientific worldview from his teachers, Freud embraced it, leading to the development of his earliest psychological theory. Although he later rejected the model that sought to explain the psyche through brain physiology, his scientific curiosity remained focused on uncovering the precise structure of the psyche. The authors argue that the foundations of psychoanalysis are rooted in the same scientific principles that shaped Freud's early neuroscientific research, suggesting that he never fully abandoned this epistemological orientation, even in his later works. The book includes contributions from various scholars, discussing topics such as Freud's dual identity as a neurologist and psychoanalyst, the influence of neurological models on psychoanalysis, and the visual representation of nerve cells and psychical mechanisms. It also examines Freud's legacy in relation to defenses, somatic symptoms, and neurophysiology, as well as concepts like discharge, reflex, free energy, and encoding.

Una donna che sostiene di parlare con Dio, un atleta che ha perso il braccio ma non la sensazione di poterne disporre, un giovane coinvolto in un tragico incidente stradale convinto che i genitori siano stati sostituiti da replicanti, e ancora il caso del celebre umorista e vignettista James Thurber, colto da allucinazioni fantastiche e "sostitutive della realtà" in seguito alla progressiva perdita della vista. Ciascuno di questi disturbi patologici è il punto di partenza per indagare su quella macchina straordinaria e animata che è il cervello, nel tentativo di ricostruirne l'architettura e il funzionamento e di dare una spiegazione alle nostre predisposizioni intellettuali o pratiche, ai nostri comportamenti e stati d'animo.

Der New Yorker Neurologe Oliver Sacks ist durch seine Fallgeschichten weltberühmt geworden. Voller Empathie und mit großer Fachkenntnis hat er immer wieder Menschen porträtiert, deren Leben durch eine schwere Krankheit oder Behinderung geprägt wurde – und hat seinen Lesern gezeigt, welche Chancen die Abweichungen vom sogenannten Normalen bieten und welche positiven Besonderheiten die betroffenen Menschen auszeichnen. Greg F. war ein begabter, musikbegeisterter junger Mann, der die amerikanische Studentenrebellion der sechziger Jahre miterlebte – mitsamt ihren Drogenexperimenten und Hare-Krishna-Eskapaden. Dann warf ihn ein Hirntumor aus der Bahn. Greg erblindete und galt fortan als neurologisch und psychisch schwer behindert – ein sogenannter hoffnungsloser Fall, an den Rollstuhl gefesselt. Oliver Sacks nahm sich des Patienten an und näherte sich ihm in einem langwierigen Prozess, den er in dieser Fallgeschichte einfühlsam beschreibt. Schließlich bringt er Greg zu einem Konzert von dessen einstiger Lieblingsband «Grateful Dead» in den Madison Square Garden – und die Sinne des Schwerkranken werden auf verblüffende Weise neu aktiviert. Eine Geschichte, die unter die Haut geht – und die überraschende Einsichten in die oft rätselhafte Funktionsweise unseres Gehirns bietet.