Customer Reviews
Simply amazing... - By: Mr. N. Ireson, 10 Jan 2009 
Well maybe not alll that simple, but truly amazing. This is one of the first (and to my mind best) of the popular science books. The author, Sacks, uses terminology which cause the text to be somewhat hard-going at times. However, the glimpse into the lives of people whose brain misfunctioning causes them to live & see the world in extraordinary ways is stranger & more wonderful than any fiction.
The over-arching question Sachs poses to the reader is "What is it to be human", & the case histories of his patients cause us to reassess our thinking about the human-mind. These patient's possess minds just like our own but with either an excess or deficit of some function which leads to extremes which I did not imagine possible before reading the book.
Perhaps with the popularisation of some of the cases, in films like Rain-man & Memento, the book will have less of an impact on modern audiences. I would hope that it does not.
A disappointment - By: Crookedmouth, 05 Jan 2009 
I suppose that it fallls to me to provide a negative review of this book. I've not given the book a low rating because while it didn't meet my expectations, it's certainly well written & interesting.
Having read Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" in which ( I think) this book is referenced, I chose this book hoping that Sacks would provide some insight into how or why a man might mistake his wife for a hat. Unfortunately the book turned out to be a rather less ambitious series of case histories of his patients. True, they're interesting & tragic histories & certainly Sacks does empathise with his patients, treating them as more than just medical subjects. However the book was, for me, profoundly unsatisfying as it didn't go into the mechanics of their problems or shed any insight (at least for a neurological layman like myself) on the inner workings of even undamaged brains. Return to Dennett for that, perhaps?
I was also a little perturbed by the occasional foray into less than scientific discussions about whether the more deeply damaged patients could be thought of as having "souls". I think that I would be deeply concerned if, had I been brain damaged, my neurologist spent any time worrying about the state of my soul!
I didn't find the book hard to get into although I agree that there's plenty of jargon that could/should have been explained (a glossary at least?) & I certainly didn't find it over-academic - quite the reverse in places. However, I neither did I manage to get more than half-way through before dropping it so maybe aI missed something in the later chapters.
Interesting read - By: K. Koh, 27 Mar 2008 
Fairly well written, & as someone who has no prior background in this field, it was easy to understand & descriptive enough to be interesting. it was not too technical that i got bogged down with terms, unlike some other neurology books i've read.
A little disappointing - By: Ibrahim Ali, 19 Mar 2008 An interesting book though I have to admit I didn't enjoy the writing style. I find Sacks to be overly academic (I'm in the medical field myself) & his use of technical jargon can be somewhat off putting. Unlike the popular work Phantoms of the Brains Sacks seems uninterested in explaining the ideas in scientific terms in any great detail, he instead takes a more anthropological approach & merely details the cases. Whilst the cases themselves are off considerable interest I found his analysis to be lacking. His writing style didn't sit well with me, though this may be more my fault than his, & ultimately I didn't find myself much wiser after having read the book.
The book is still worth reading, however for a non-medical reader I'd recommend the far superior Phantoms of the Brain before approaching this work as it'll help you understand a lot of what Sacks talks about. There were, within the book, one or two cases that viewers of House M.D. would recognise.
A Fascinating Read - By: Zadius Sky, 15 Feb 2008 A neurologist, Oliver Sacks, discussed & brought to light the neurological disorders in case by case in this book with an interesting choice of the title: "Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat." This is the first book by Sacks that I have read, & I found his writing style to be quite enjoyable.
Not only that, this book contains an extraordinary collection of cases of individuals with neurological disorders that brings one to understand a bit on how human brain works. While this book was first published in the early 1970s & the understanding of the human brain mechanism has changed & increased since then, I found this book to be very insightful.
Out of alll the cases I have read from this book, I found the following cases (or stories) to be of great interest to me: "Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," "The Man Who Fell Out of Bed," "Witty Ticcy Ray," "Cupid's disease," & "The Autist Artist."
This book is a fascinating read & deeply recommended.
