Oliver Sacks

Foreword by Oliver Sacks Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965) was already an established neuropsychologist when he emigrated from Germany to the United States in the 1930s. This book, his magnum opus and widely regarded as a modern classic in psychology and biology, grew out of his dissatisfaction with traditional natural science techniques for analyzing living beings. It offers a broad introduction to the sources and ranges of application of the "holistic" or "organismic" research program that has since become a standard part of biological thought. Goldstein was especially concerned with the breakdown of organization and the failure of central controls that take place in catastrophic responses to situations such as physical or mental illness. But he was equally attuned to the amazing powers of the organism to readjust to such catastrophic losses, if only by withdrawal to a more limited range that it could manage by a redistribution of its reduced energies, thus reclaiming as much wholeness as new circumstances allowed. Goldstein's theses in The Organism have had an important impact on philosophical and psychological thought throughout the twentieth century, as evidenced in the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Georges Canguilhem, Ernst Cassirer, and Ludwig Binswanger.

Foreword by Oliver Sacks Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965) was already an established neuropsychologist when he emigrated from Germany to the United States in the 1930s. This book, his magnum opus and widely regarded as a modern classic in psychology and biology, grew out of his dissatisfaction with traditional natural science techniques for analyzing living beings. It offers a broad introduction to the sources and ranges of application of the "holistic" or "organismic" research program that has since become a standard part of biological thought. Goldstein was especially concerned with the breakdown of organization and the failure of central controls that take place in catastrophic responses to situations such as physical or mental illness. But he was equally attuned to the amazing powers of the organism to readjust to such catastrophic losses, if only by withdrawal to a more limited range that it could manage by a redistribution of its reduced energies, thus reclaiming as much wholeness as new circumstances allowed. Goldstein's theses in The Organism have had an important impact on philosophical and psychological thought throughout the twentieth century, as evidenced in the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Georges Canguilhem, Ernst Cassirer, and Ludwig Binswanger.

Have you ever seen something that wasn’t really there? Heard someone call your name in an empty house? Sensed someone following you and turned around to find nothing? Hallucinations don’t belong wholly to the insane. Much more commonly, they are linked to sensory deprivation, intoxication, illness, or injury. In some conditions, hallucinations can lead to religious epiphanies or even the feeling of leaving one’s own body. Humans have always sought such life-changing visions, and for thousands of years have used hallucinogenic compounds to achieve them. In Hallucinations, with his usual elegance, curiosity, and compassion, Dr Oliver Sacks weaves together stories of his patients and of his own mind-altering experiences to illuminate what hallucinations tell us about the organization and structure of our brains, how they have influenced every culture’s folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all, a vital part of the human condition. Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.

"Cholovik, jakij splutav druzhinu z kapeljukhom" - tse zbirka nezvichajnikh istorij patsijentiv, z jakimi pratsjuvav doktor Saks. Jogo patsijenti vtratili spogadi, vvazhajut vlasni kintsivki "chuzhimi", majut nezbagnenni zdibnosti do skladnikh obchislen i bezlich inshikh vidkhilen vid "normi", scho pokazujut, naskilki nash svit rozmajitij. Adzhe inodi fizichnij i dukhovnij zv'jazok z realnistju dosit skladno vidshukati. Saks bere za ruku tikh, khto vtrativ tsej zv'jazok, i provodit do vikhodu z ekzistentsijnogo labirintu. Rekomendovano vsim, khto tsikavitsja, jak vlashtovano ljudinu.

'Oliver Sacks’s Letters isn’t a book of the year – it’s a book for a lifetime . . . Keep this by your side, dip into it, be reminded of the wonders of our shared humanity' – Erica Wagner, 'Books of the year 2024', New StatesmanA New Yorker and New Statesman Book of the Year 2024Oliver Sacks, one of the great humanists of our age – who describes himself in these pages as a ‘philosophical physician’ and an ‘astronomer of the inward’ – wrote to an eclectic array of family and friends. Most were scientists, artists, and writers, even statesmen: Francis Crick, Jane Goodall, W. H. Auden, Susan Sontag, Björk, and even his first cousin, Abba Eban. But many of the most eloquent letters in this collection are addressed to the ordinary people who wrote to him with their odd symptoms and questions, to whom he responds with a sense of generosity and wonder.With some correspondents, Sacks shares his struggle for recognition and acceptance both as a physician and as a gay man, providing intimate accounts as well of his passions for competitive weightlifting, motorcycles, botany, and music. With others, he chronicles his penchant for testing the boundaries of authority, the discovery of his writer’s voice, and his explosive seasons of discovery with the patients who populate his book Awakenings.His descriptions of travels as a young man and the extraordinary people he encounters can be lyrical, ferocious, penetrating and hilarious. Many of his musings include the first detailed sketches of an essay forming in his mind, or miniature case histories rivalling those in his beloved essay collections.Sensitively selected and introduced by Kate Edgar, Sacks’s longtime editor, the letters trace the arc of a remarkable life and reveal an often surprising portrait of Sacks as he wrestles with the workings of his own brain and mind.'Here is the unedited Oliver Sacks – struggling, passionate, a furiously intelligent misfit. And also endless interesting. He was a man like no other' – Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal'Sacks is an endearing and entertaining prose stylist – inquisitive, often funny, never obtuse . . . Letters is crammed with off-the-cuff profundities, moments of elevated perception that briefly unriddle the more inscrutable aspects of human nature.' – Ralf Webb, Guardian

In An Anthropologist on Mars Oliver Sacks uses case studies to illustrate the myriad ways in which neurological conditions can affect our sense of self, our experience of the world, and how we relate to those around us. Writing with his trademark blend of scientific rigour and human compassion, he describes patients such as the colour-blind painter or the surgeon with compulsive tics that disappear in the operating theatre; patients for whom disorientation and alienation – but also adaptation – are inescapable facts of life.'An inexhaustible tourist at the farther reaches of the mind, Sacks presents, in sparse, unsentimental prose, the stories of seven of his patients. The result is as rich, vivid and compelling as any collection of short fictional stories' – Independent on Sunday Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.

From the bestselling author of On Gratitude, On the Move and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.In this spirited volume, neurologist Oliver Sacks examines the many passions of his own life – both as a doctor engaged with the central questions of human existence, and as a polymath conversant in all the sciences. Why do humans need gardens? How, and when, does a physician tell his patient she has Alzheimer’s? What is social media doing to our brains?In several of the compassionate case histories collected here, Sacks considers for the first time the enigmas of depression, psychosis and schizophrenia, and in others he returns to conditions that have long fascinated him: Tourette’s syndrome, ageing, dementia and hallucinations. In counterpoint to these elegant investigations of what makes us human, this volume also includes pieces that celebrate Sacks’s love of the natural world – and his last meditations on life in the twenty-first century. Everything in Its Place gives us an intimate portrait of a master writer and thinker at work.‘Life bursts through all of Oliver Sacks’s writing. He was and will remain a brilliant singularity’ The New York Times Book ReviewNow part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.

With his trademark compassion and erudition, Dr Oliver Sacks examines the power of music through the individual experiences of patients, musicians, and everyday people.Among them: a surgeon who is struck by lightning and suddenly becomes obsessed with Chopin; people with ‘amusia’, to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and pans; and a man whose memory spans only seven seconds – for everything but music.Dr Sacks describes how music can animate people with Parkinson’s disease who cannot otherwise move, give words to stroke patients who cannot otherwise speak, and calm and organize people who are deeply disoriented by Alzheimer’s or schizophrenia.Musicophilia alters our conception of who we are and how we function, and shows us an essential part of what it is to be human.Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.

"Jazyk zhestov" glukhonemykh.Chto on soboj predstavljaet - pantomimu, bolee ili menee udachno illjustrirujuschuju foneticheskuju rech? Ili samostojatelnyj jazyk, obladajuschij sobstvennoj grammatikoj i semantikoj i ni v chem ne ustupajuschij ustnoj rechi? V rabote "Zrimye golosa" - odnom iz samykh interesnykh svoikh proizvedenij - Oliver Saks vydvigaet smeluju i originalnuju teoriju, soglasno kotoroj imenno jazyk zhestov - podlinnyj i pervonachalnyj jazyk golovnogo mozga. Odnako glavnuju tsennost knigi sostavljajut realnye istorii ljudej s ogranichennymi vozmozhnostjami, ne prosto borovshikhsja za polnotsennuju zhizn, no i pobedivshikh v etoj borbe!..

Kakova dolja istiny v shutke: "Lzhet, kak ochevidets"? i mozhem li my doverjat svoej pamjati? Paradoksy vosprijatija vremeni: pochemu inogda nam kazhetsja, chto vremja nesetsja vskach, a v drugie momenty ono vdrug zamiraet i tjanetsja beskonechno? Kakuju rol sygrala nezhnaja primula v teorii evoljutsii Darvina? I spravedlivo li obvinjat plagiatorov v tom, chto oni vorujut idei? V sbornik vkljucheny esse Olivera Saksa, posvjaschennye osobennostjam vosprijatija vremeni, paradoksam soznanija i neozhidannym povorotam tvorcheskoj mysli takikh geniev ot nauki, kak Zigmund Frejd, Charlz Darvin i Viljam Dzhejms.

"Migren" - sbornik "klinicheskikh" rasskazov Saksa, opisyvajuschikh realnye istorii ego patsientov. Naibolshij interes v nikh predstavljajut ne sugubo meditsinskie podrobnosti (kotorykh v sbornike na udivlenie malo), a sobstvennye perezhivanija patsientov - i sovershenno novaja kontseptsija vosprijatija mnogikh psikhicheskikh zabolevanij, pozvoljajuschikh ikh nositeljam, neizlechimym v opredelennoj oblasti, neozhidanno raskryt sebja i dobitsja nemalykh uspekhov v oblastjakh inykh.

'Oliver Sacks’s Letters isn’t a book of the year – it’s a book for a lifetime . . . Keep this by your side, dip into it, be reminded of the wonders of our shared humanity' – Erica Wagner, 'Books of the year 2024', New StatesmanA New Yorker and New Statesman Book of the Year 2024Oliver Sacks, one of the great humanists of our age – who describes himself in these pages as a ‘philosophical physician’ and an ‘astronomer of the inward’ – wrote to an eclectic array of family and friends. Most were scientists, artists, and writers, even statesmen: Francis Crick, Antonio Damasio, Jane Goodall, W. H. Auden, Susan Sontag, Stephen Jay Gould, Björk, and his first cousin, Abba Eban. But many of the most eloquent letters in this collection are addressed to the ordinary people who wrote to him with their odd symptoms and questions, to whom he responds with a sense of generosity and wonder.With some correspondents, Sacks shares his struggle for recognition and acceptance both as a physician and as a gay man, providing intimate accounts as well of his passions for competitive weightlifting, motorcycles, botany, and music. With others, he chronicles his penchant for testing the boundaries of authority, the discovery of his writer’s voice, and his explosive seasons of discovery with the patients who populate his book Awakenings.His descriptions of travels as a young man and the extraordinary people he encounters can be lyrical, ferocious, penetrating and hilarious. Many of his musings include the first detailed sketches of an essay forming in his mind, or miniature case histories rivalling those in his beloved essay collections.Sensitively selected and introduced by Kate Edgar, Sacks’s longtime editor, the letters trace the arc of a remarkable life and reveal an often surprising portrait of Sacks as he wrestles with the workings of his own brain and mind.'Here is the unedited Oliver Sacks – struggling, passionate, a furiously intelligent misfit. And also endless interesting. He was a man like no other' – Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal'Sacks is an endearing and entertaining prose stylist – inquisitive, often funny, never obtuse . . . Letters is crammed with off-the-cuff profundities, moments of elevated perception that briefly unriddle the more inscrutable aspects of human nature.' – Ralf Webb, Guardian