Oliver Sacks

Born in London in 1933 and educated in medicine at Oxford, Oliver Sacks was a neurologist and scientific nonfiction writer. His work with chronically ill patients, including those with Parkinsons, Tourettes, and post-encephalitic parkinsonism, forms the basis for much of his writing, including The River of Consciousness. Sacks' limited writing about himself paints a picture of a highly intelligent, curious, hardworking, humorous, creative, and warm-hearted man, though he does not go into much detail about his personal life. The book's forward by Kate Edgar, Daniel Frank, and Bill Hayes, describes him as an interdisciplinary scholar who could move easily between all scientific disciplines. He is also described as "an acute observer [who] delighted in collecting examples" and as a man "drawn to understand human behavior at its most enigmatic" whose "investigations of time, memory, and creativity" maintain his attention "on the specificity of experience" (x).

Described by...