The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

If a man has lost a leg or an eye, he knows he has lost a leg or an eye; but if he has lost a self – himself – he cannot know it, because he is no longer there to know it.In this extraordinary book, Dr Oliver Sacks recounts the stories of patients struggling to adapt to often bizarre worlds of neurological disorder. Here are people who can no longer recognise everyday objects or those they love; who are stricken with violent tics or shout involuntary obscenities; who have been dismissed as autistic or retarded, yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents. If inconceivably strange, these brilliant tales illuminate what it means to be human.A provocative exploration of the mysteries of the human mind, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a million-copy bestseller by the 20th century’s greatest neurologist.

'Populated by a cast as strange as that of the most fantastic fiction ... Dr Sacks shows the awesome powers of our mind and just how delicately balanced they have to be.' -- The Sunday Times
'This book is for everybody who has felt from time to time that certain twinge of self-identity and sensed how easily, at any moment, one might lose it.' -- The Times
'... insightful, compassionate and moving ... a masterpiece of clinical writing.' -- The New York Times

Oliver Sacks, M.D. was a physician, bestselling author, and professor of neurology at the NYU School of Medicine. The New York Times has referred to him as 'the poet laureate of medicine'.He is best known for his collections of neurological case histories, including The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain and An Anthropologist on Mars. Awakenings, his book about a group of patients who had survived the great encephalitis lethargica epidemic of the early twentieth century, inspired the 1990 Academy Award-nominated feature film starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams.Dr Sacks was a frequent contributor to the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, before his death in August 2015. Oliver Sacks was a physician, writer, and professor of neurology. Born in London in 1933, he moved to New York City in 1965, where he launched his medical career and began writing case studies of his patients. Called the “poet laureate of medicine” by The New York Times, Sacks is the author of more than a dozen books, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia, and Awakenings, which inspired an Oscar-nominated film and a play by Harold Pinter. He was the recipient of many awards and honorary degrees, and was made a Commander of the British Empire in 2008 for services to medicine. He died in 2015. Jonathan Davis is a critically acclaimed narrator and voiceover actor. He has narrated more than 350 audiobooks, including a variety of bestsellers and award-winners. Davis is a three-time recipient and 14-time nominee of the celebrated Audie Award. He is also active in the voiceover industry providing voice work for films, documentaries, video games and animation.

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