Book cover of Gratitude

Book description

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…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

3 authors picked Gratitude as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

The late Oliver Sacks was a neurologist who wrote eloquently about medical topics until he was taken from us by cancer in 2015.

Before he died, he wrote four lovely essays talking about his illness, and the great privilege of being human. Sacks was one of our greatest writers, thoughtful and incisive. Because he was dying as he wrote this, you may wish to wait to digest this book if you have recently experienced the loss of a loved one, and come back to it when you’re in a better place.

Oliver Sacks was a pioneer in writing about the varieties of the mind, particularly describing his patients with neurological conditions and differences. In many ways, he was talking about neurodiversity even before we had a name for it. This book was written as he was dying of cancer, as he reflected on an important emotion – gratitude. He makes an eloquent case for being grateful for all the simple, beautiful things that life offers and that we often take for granted, and how the emotion of gratitude changes your relationship to the world, to others, and to yourself. This is…

From Simon's list on exploring the human mind.

Oliver Sacks is a famous psychologist who started to become more and more spiritual with age with the ability to combine his scientific approach to his wisdom. When he found out that he only had a few months to live he decided to spend his last time focusing on the good side of his life and the gift he received instead of focusing on sadness and desperation.

This book is the result of that period and is a fantastic journey through the benefits of gratitude and of being grateful.

From Ivan's list on the power of gratitude.

If you love Gratitude...

Book cover of The Day Albert Einstein Discovered Relativity

The Day Albert Einstein Discovered Relativity by Bryant Wieneke,

Twenty-six-year-old Albert Einstein is a rebel. He refuses to follow the path described for physicists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is haunted by the belief that there's something terribly wrong in the world of physics.

The Day Albert Einstein Discovered Relativity tells the gripping story of…

Want books like Gratitude?

Our community of 13,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Gratitude.

Browse books like Gratitude

Book cover of The Secret
Book cover of Zero Limits: The Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Peace, and More
Book cover of A Simple Act of Gratitude: How Learning to Say Thank You Changed My Life

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,395

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like Gratitude, you might also like...

Book cover of A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman: A Memoir

A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman by Lindy Elkins-Tanton,

A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman explores how a philosophy of life can be built from the lessons of the natural world. Amid a childhood of trauma, Lindy Elkins-Tanton fell in love with science as a means of healing and consolation. She takes us from the wilds…

Book cover of What's Gotten Into You: The Story of Your Body's Atoms, from the Big Bang Through Last Night's Dinner

What's Gotten Into You by Dan Levitt,

What's Gotten Into You is a wondrous, wildly ambitious, and vastly entertaining work of popular science that tells the awe-inspiring story of the elements that make up the human body, and how these building blocks of life travelled billions of miles and across billions of years to make us who…

5 book lists we think you will like!