About the Author - Oliver Sacks

"The Poet Laureate of Medicine" 

Dr. Oliver Wolf Sacks was a British neurologist, naturalist and author. His books contain a wealth of narrative detail about his experiences with patients and how they coped with their conditions as well as exploring and explaining how the brain deals with perception, memory and individuality. 

Oliver Sacks is set known for his collection of neurological case histories about his patients disorders and their experience of dealing with them. These include: 

. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat

. Tales of Music and The Brain

. An Anthropologist on Mars

. Awakenings

. Musicophillia

The books "Awakenings" tells the story of a group of extraordinary patients Dr Sacks encountered whilst working as a consulting neurologist for the Beth Abraham Hospital in The Bronx. The book recounts the life histories of a group of survivors of the 1920s sleepy sickness, encephalitis lethargica, who had been unable to move on their own for decades. His treatment of those patients became the basis of Sacks's book. The book inspired the play 'A Kind of Alaska' by Harold Pinter and was the basis for Oscar nominated feature film 'Awakenings' starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams. 

I was instantly fascinated by Oliver Sacks as soon as I started reading into his work and his life. I'm pretty interested in learning about how our minds work and how the brain functions so stuff like this is right up my street! 

I've already ordered the book 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat' even if I don't choose to focus on Sacks for this project I'm really interested into reading some of his work! Also, Awakenings is definitely, definitely worth the watch if you haven't already seen it!