Will I love An Anthropologist on Mars?

One of Oliver Sack’s delightful books containing stories of individuals with various neurological disorders. I read the first one, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, back in the 1980s  when it first came out and was hooked, now having read almost all of them.

The one I am recommending is, I believe, more relevant to an understanding of brain mechanisms. One criticism I have had of Sack’s books is that there is little in the way of neurobiological explanations for the conditions described. In my book, most chapters begin with a Sack-like story about a specific… show more.

Oliver Sacks merges science and storytelling with elegance and grace in every one of his books about human behavior.

He’s honest, compassionate, and curious—all characteristics that consistently draw me to his writing and make me what to learn more. In An Anthropologist on Mars, Sacks profiles seven neurological patients and the conditions that affect them, including a painter with colorblindness and the scientist Temple Grandin, who has autism.

I love that Sacks uses first person as he guides his readers. He invites us in—we unravel facts and clues just as Sacks does, making each profile fresh and dynamic. 

An Anthropologist On Mars taught me that I was not alone in being different. The world was full of other odd characters like me, including those who were autistic, a term I had never come across before. Temple Grandin, who was featured in the book, also wrote Thinking in Pictures, which I could fully sympathise with and recognise because I too thought in images and not words. In the same way that Simon Baron Cohen's book Zero Degrees of Empathy told me that I wasn't psychotic or dangerous to other people, just that I lacked an emotional relationship with… show more.

Oliver Sacks is a legend, a physician-writer like no other. I could recommend any of his books, but An Anthropologist on Mars is a fun place to start. It’s a collection of seven narratives about patients with a diversity of neurological conditions. Most notable, though, are Sacks’ methods, akin to an anthropologist engaging in field research. He explains, “The exploration of deeply altered selves and worlds is not one that can be fully made in a consulting room or office…With this in mind, I have taken off my white coat, deserted, by and large, the hospitals where I have spent… show more.