The mind's eye

Resource Information

The work The mind's eye represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Austin Public Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

This resource has been enriched with EBSCO NoveList data.

Label

The mind's eye

Statement of responsibility

Oliver Sacks

Title variation

minds eye

Creator

• trueSacks, Oliver, 1933-2015

Subject

• trueCognitive disorders
• Communicative disorders -- Popular works
• trueFace perception
• Face perception -- Popular works
• truePerception
• Perception -- Popular works
• trueVision
• trueVision disorders
• truePeople with communicative disorders
• Cognition disorders -- Popular works

Genre

• truePopular works

Language

eng

Summary

In this work the author tells the stories of people who are able to navigate the world and communicate with others despite losing what many of us consider indispensable senses and abilities: the power of speech, the capacity to recognize faces, the sense of three dimensional space, the ability to read, the sense of sight. For all of these people, the challenge is to adapt to a radically new way of being in the world. There is Lilian, a concert pianist who becomes unable to read music and is eventually unable even to recognize everyday objects, and Sue, a neurobiologist who has never seen in three dimensions, until she suddenly acquires stereoscopic vision in her fifties. There is Pat, who reinvents herself as a loving grandmother and active member of her community, despite the fact that she has aphasia and cannot utter a sentence, and Howard, a prolific novelist who must find a way to continue his life as a writer even after a stroke destroys his ability to read. And there is the author himself, a doctor who tells the story of his own eye cancer and the bizarre and disconcerting effects of losing vision to one side. He explores some very strange paradoxes, people who can see perfectly well but cannot recognize their own children, and blind people who become hyper visual or who navigate by "tongue vision." He also considers more fundamental questions: How do we see? How do we think? How important is internal imagery, or vision, for that matter? Why is it that, although writing is only five thousand years old, humans have a universal, seemingly innate, potential for reading? This book is a testament to the complexity of vision and the brain and to the power of creativity and adaptation. And it provides a whole new perspective on the power of language and communication, as we try to imagine what it is to see with another person's eyes, or another person's mind

Tone

• trueReflective

Writing style

• trueThoughtful

Award

New York Times Notable Book, 2010

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

616.85/5

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography