The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

Front Cover
Picador, 1986 - Fiction - 233 pages

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is populated by a cast as strange as that of the most fantastic fiction. The subject of this strange and wonderful book is what happens when things go wrong with parts of the brain most of us don’t know exist . . . Dr Sacks shows the awesome powers of our mind and just how delicately balanced they have to be’ Sunday Times

‘Who is this book for? Who is it not for? It 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

‘This is, in the best sense, a serious book. It is, indeed, a wonderful book, by which I mean not only that it is excellent (which it is) but also that it is full of wonder, wonders and wondering. He brings to these often unhappy people understanding, sympathy and respect. Sacks is always learning from his patients, marvelling at them, widening his own understanding and ours’ Punch

Other editions - View all

About the author (1986)

Oliver Wolf Sacks is a neurologist and writer. He was born in London, England on July 9, 1933. Sacks earned his medical degree at Oxford University and performed his internship at Middlesex Hospital in London and Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco. He completed his residency at UCLA. In 1965, Sacks became a clinical neurologist to the Little Sisters of the Poor and Beth Abraham Hospital. He also worked with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Sacks' work in a Bronx charity hospital led him to write the book Awakenings in 1973. The book inspired a play by Harold Pinter and became a film starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams. Sacks was also elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He also wrote Mind's Eye which made The NewYork Times Bestseller list for 2010.

Bibliographic information