The man who mistook his wife for a hat
By Dave Hall
Dipping his fingers into the world of sci-lit, Dave Hall checks that he's still got all his faculties.
A bizarre title for a book, but nothing bizarre about the content. Dr. Oliver Sacks recounts tales from the world of neuroscience - not something you think would be very interesting, but this is different.
Sacks looks at people who are troubled with memory loss, abnormal physical deformities, social misfits such as those with tourette’s syndrome and those with peculiar talents for arts, mathematics and memory.
Each chapter contains a different story from real life, for example, one looks at autism, not just the condition and the biology, but the psychology behind it too, how people with no prior teaching or knowledge can be natural mathematicians and find learning it so easy.
He goes on to suggest we might not need such comprehensive teaching if there is already this knowledge inside each
of us; we just need the right environment to coax it out of us. The easy way it is written, while still explaining fully the complex issues behind each condition make the book a gem to take away and get stuck into. Bringing together medicine, psychology, biology and philosophy in a fascinating look at the human mind, this book tackles often neglected and taboo subjects of mental health.
His finely woven, almost poetic, anecdotes allow the reader a chance to peer into the world of the neurologically impaired and imagine how it feels to live there. We meet, amongst others, a woman who unexpectedly hears deafeningly loud Irish music in her head and a pair of autistic twins who talk to each other in six-digit prime numbers.
Dr. Sacks’ compassion and humanity for his subjects is never far from the surface which make The man who mistook his wife for a hat an enticing, engrossing and thoroughly enjoyable read. It comes to you highly recommended.
Grab a copy of this book
Oliver W. Sacks, The man who mistook his wife for a hat and other clinical tales. Pocket Books, 1998.
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