The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

An Everyman Classic hardback edition of Dr Sacks's most extraordinary book, in which the poet laureate of medicine (New York Times) recounts fascinating case histories of patients with neurological disorders. Introduced by Atul Gawande, American surgeon and writer, who has said that no one taught him more about how to be a doctor than Oliver Sacks.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks investigates the complex relationship between the brain and the mind and, almost impossibly, manages to make his subject matter not only accessible to the general reader, but utterly absorbing. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of individuals suffering from perceptual and intellectual disorders—patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognise people and common objects; whose limbs seem alien to them; who lack some skills yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.

Their struggles are recounted with sympathy and respect. A great healer, Sacks never loses sight of medicine's ultimate responsibility to assist the suffering, afflicted, fighting human subject. A work of profound humanity.