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by Oliver Sacks
From the bestselling author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Here the doctor becomes the patient as Dr. Sacks chronicles the mountaineering accident which left him with the uncanny feeling of being "legless," and raises profound questions of the physical basis of identity.
In A Leg to Stand On, it is Sacks himself who is the patient: an encounter with a bull on a desolate mountain in Norway has left him with a severely damaged leg. But what should be a routine recuperation is actually the beginning of a strange medical journey when he finds that his leg uncannily no longer feels like part of his body. Sacks's brilliant description of his crisis and eventual recovery is not only an illuminating examination of the experience of patienthood and the inner nature of illness and health but also a fascinating exploration of the physical basis of identity.
This 1984 classic is now available in an expanded edition with a new foreword, written by Kate Edgar, executive director of the Oliver Sacks Foundation.
"A neurologist in [the] great tradition... . A story about the nature of selfhood—a narrative comparable to Conrad's 'The Secret Sharer.'" —The New York Review of Books
"In calling for a 'neurology of the soul' and a 'deeper and more humane medicine,' Sacks's remarkable book raises issues of profound importance for everyone interested in health care and the humane application of science." —The Washington Post
This information about A Leg to Stand On was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Dr. Oliver Sacks spent more than fifty years working as a neurologist and writing books about the neurological predicaments and conditions of his patients, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia, and Awakenings. The New York Times referred to him as "the poet laureate of medicine," and over the years, he received many awards, including honors from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal College of Physicians. His memoir, On the Move, was published shortly before his death in August 2015.
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