Oliver Sacks' memoir reveals a rebel with the human touch | Hacker News Reader

Oliver Sacks' memoir reveals a rebel with the human touch

theguardian.com

20 pointsbenbreen6 comments

I'm about halfway through Sacks' new memoir and it's got to be one of the most unexpected autobiographies I've ever read. Even his earlier memoir (the more chemistry-focused Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, which I highly recommend) didn't prepare me for how incredibly interesting this man's life has been. He seems to have one of those polymathic minds that could have gone in dozens of different directions (not to mention a surprising streak of physicality -- apparently he broke a California state weight-lifting record when he lived in SF as a young medical resident!). It's not just an intellectually interesting read, but a life affirming and moving one as well, one of those books where you feel like the author is a friend.

Edit: his description of his use of LSD and amphetamines in the mid-60s (elaborated more in his memoirs and in his previous book "Hallucinations") is one of my favorite things to appear in the New Yorker in recent years; figured I'd link to it here:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/08/27/altered-states

Great piece, Proper link http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/08/27/altered-states-...

Interesting! I wonder how that happened.

EDIT: The link, that is. Looks like the URL accepts any date, i.e. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2099/05/19/altered-states-.... So maybe benbreen just missed a couple characters when copying and pasting?

benbreen just missed the "-3" at the end, or maybe even removed it intentionally thinking it was a link to the third page of the article.

It is interesting that the date is ignored in the URL. It looks like the part after the date is actually an identifier for the article made up of the title + "-1", "-2" etc when needed. The Sacks article is the third with the title "Altered States."

Here's a synopsis of the book with a nice collection of photo's (presumably from the book), including one of him breaking the weightlifting record:

http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/05/18/oliver-sacks-on-the-...

I'm very much enjoying his memoir. If you want to hear what Oliver Sacks sounds like, there is a 10 - 20 minute interview with him in one of the latest episodes of radiolab (it's the second story)

http://www.radiolab.org/story/radiolab-live-telltale-hearts-...

Oliver is also on twitter (@OliverSacks). Anyone who is moved by his books should send him a tweet and let him know what he means to you.

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