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4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
informative
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
A combination: 3 stars for the first parts of the book, but 5 stars for the later sections on autism, particularly those on Temple Grandin.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Only read a few chapters for my Visual Arts and Brain Studies but what I did read was very interesting.
slow-paced
Beautiful. Written with insight and compassion by a man of remarkable humanity and curiosity without a shred of hubris.
This book proves the massive need for integration of disability studies in American educational systems.
Fascinating. I found myself relating a lot of information to my husband as I read each story. The only hindrance for me was the copious amount of footnotes. It was distracting & interrupted the flow.
The impression I got from this book was an overwhelming feeling of fumbling around the edges of understanding how the human mind works, and the ways in which it doesn’t always work as expected, without actually getting to the bottom of the mystery, or really making much progress toward it at all.
I can’t really blame Sacks for this, or others who patiently study cases like those described here, since of course it’s a difficult area to research, and maybe one forever beyond our complete understanding. And Sacks certainly makes a valiant effort to understand the people he studies, as well as getting to know them as people, and ultimately to convey their humanity and their unique conditions to the reader.
I was most interested in the discussion of the restoration of sight after long term blindness, maybe because this came the closest to reaching a true scientific conclusion: that sight is not simply something the eyes do, but something the brain does to interpret the input from the eyes. Having been deprived of that input for most of a person’s life, it makes sense that the ability to see doesn’t just magically return with full functionality. The extended discussion of autism was also interesting, if less conclusive.
The remaining case studies, for me, were less compelling, possibly because most of what Sacks and other experts have to say about the conditions is so speculative. Maybe I just need to wait until further progress is made in neuroscience to get a book that finally reaches the goal of all this exploratory pondering.
I can’t really blame Sacks for this, or others who patiently study cases like those described here, since of course it’s a difficult area to research, and maybe one forever beyond our complete understanding. And Sacks certainly makes a valiant effort to understand the people he studies, as well as getting to know them as people, and ultimately to convey their humanity and their unique conditions to the reader.
I was most interested in the discussion of the restoration of sight after long term blindness, maybe because this came the closest to reaching a true scientific conclusion: that sight is not simply something the eyes do, but something the brain does to interpret the input from the eyes. Having been deprived of that input for most of a person’s life, it makes sense that the ability to see doesn’t just magically return with full functionality. The extended discussion of autism was also interesting, if less conclusive.
The remaining case studies, for me, were less compelling, possibly because most of what Sacks and other experts have to say about the conditions is so speculative. Maybe I just need to wait until further progress is made in neuroscience to get a book that finally reaches the goal of all this exploratory pondering.