The Mind's Eye

Neurologist Oliver Sacks recounts his diagnosis of an ocular tumor, his treatment, and the eventual loss of most of his vision in that eye. As a result, his world loses dimension and becomes, essentially, flat. Sacks delivers the personal portion of the book. His measured tones and control contrast with the poignancy of his accounts of how he learned to adapt. Sacks also introduces case studies of others who have lost their ability to see, read, or recognize faces as a result of neurological disorders. These are narrated by Richard Davidson, whose careful and steady narrative style matches that of Sacks. J.E.M. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

Starred review from November 8, 2010
Sacks, a neurologist and practicing physician at Columbia University Medical Center, and author of ten popular books on the quirks of the human mind (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat) focuses here on creative people who have learned to compensate for potentially devastating disabilities. From the concert pianist who progressively lost the ability to recognize objects (including musical scores) yet managed to keep performing from memory, to the writer whose stroke disturbed his ability to read but not his ability to write (he used his experience to write a novel about a detective suffering from amnesia), to Sacks himself, who suffers from "face blindness," a condition that renders him unable to recognize people, even relatives and, sometimes, himself (he once confused a stranger's face in a window with his own reflection), Sacks finds fascination in the strange workings of the human mind. Written with his trademark insight, compassion, and humor, these seven new tales once again make the obscure and arcane absolutely absorbing.