"Two weeks before his death, Oliver Sacks outlined the contents of The River of Consciousness, the last book he would oversee. The best-selling author of On the Move, Musicophilia, and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Sacks is known for his illuminating case histories about people living with neurological conditions at the far borderlands of human experience. But his grasp of science was not restricted to neuroscience or medicine; he was fascinated...

From its opening pages on his youthful obsession with motorcycles and speed, and infused with his restless energy. As he recounts his experiences as a young neurologist in the early 1960s, first in California, where he struggled with drug addiction and then in New York, where he discovered a long-forgotten illness in the back wards of a chronic hospital, we see how his engagement with patients comes to define his life.

Drawing on the individual experiences of patients, musicians, composers, and ordinary people, the author explores the complex human response to music, and how music can affect those suffering from a variety of ailments.

"In July 2013, Oliver Sacks turned eighty and wrote a ... piece in The New York Times about the prospect of old age and the freedom he envisioned for himself in binding together the thoughts and feelings of a lifetime. Eighteen months later, he was given a diagnosis of terminal cancer--which he announced publically in another piece in The New York Times. Gratitude is Sacks's meditation on why life continued to enthrall him even as he faced the all-too-close...

The author profiles seven neurological patients, including a surgeon with Tourette's syndrome and an artist whose color sense is destroyed in an accident but finds new creative power in black and white.

The author -- an animal scientist who has designed one-third of all the livestock-handling facilities in the United States -- describes her life with autism and how she has used her strong visual sensibility to cope with it. Writing from the dual perspectives of a scientist and an autistic person, Grandin tells us how that country is experienced by its inhabitants and how she managed to breach its boundaries to function in the outside world. What...

A joyous cinematic exploration of music's capacity to reawaken our souls and uncover the deepest parts of our humanity. Filmmaker Michael Rossato-Bennett chronicles the astonishing experiences of individuals around the country who have been revitalized through the simple experience of listening to music.

"In this intimate and inspiring book, Susan Barry shares the heartfelt letters through which she and Oliver Sacks became friends, laying bare the meeting of two people endlessly intrigued by the world and its mysteries"--