"Dr. Sacks conjures apparitions in language that has an easy, tactile magic. . . . He illuminate[s] the complexities of the human brain and the mysteries of the human mind." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"Beguiling. . . . Sacks presents a field guide to our quirky operating system's powers of deception with storytelling that makes readers feel like medical insiders." --
Chicago Tribune "Elegant. . . . An absorbing plunge into a mystery of the mind." --
Entertainment Weekly "Humane, compassionate. . . . These tales are at turns delightful, entertaining, bizarre and sometimes downright terrifying." --
Minneapolis Star Tribune "This doctor cares deeply about his patients' experiences--about their lives, not just about their diseases. Through his accounts we can imagine what it is like to find that our perceptions don't hook on to reality--that our brains are constructing a world that nobody else can see, hear or touch. . . . Sacks has turned hallucinations from something bizarre and frightening into something that seems part of what it means to be a person. His book, too, is a medical and human triumph." --
The Washington Post
"[Sacks] covers a broad range of sensory disturbances. . . . One of the pleasures of reading
Hallucinations is understanding how complex human reality often trumps attempts to categorize it." --
The New York Times Book Review
"Sacks' science writing is always revelatory, and there are moments in
Hallucinations when seeing things can feel downright life-affirming." --
Time "The greatest living ethnographer of those fascinating tribes who live on the outer and still largely uncharted shores of the land of Mind-and-Brain." --
The Guardian (London)
"Fascinating and engaging. . . . Sacks uses the unique mixture of patient anecdote, memoir, scientific information, and broad reference to literature, art, music, history, and philosophy that has characterized all his work." --
The Boston Globe "It is rare, indeed, when such an expert is also a talented writer. . . . It is remarkable to see the consistency of this literate, inquiring mind." --
The Philadelphia Inquirer"[A] mesmerizing casebook of neurological marvels." --
New York Magazine
"Sacks writes, as usual, with a sharp mix of clinical precision, curiosity, and compassion." --
The Daily Beast
"Fascinating. . . . With his special mix of patient case studies, historical accounts, reader correspondence and personal experience, Oliver Sacks has again found a way to unlock one of the mysteries of our brains." --
The Miami Herald
"Escorts the reader through case studies and literary excursions into the fantastical land of our perceptions. . . . His vignettes are short, pungent and self-contained. They join his earlier books, starting with
Awakenings in 1973--all building blocks that snap our increasing knowledge of the brain into focus." --
The Plain Dealer
"A brisk but characteristically absorbing survey of the many ways human beings perceive things that are not there. . . . [Sacks] gives us the exceptional and the idiosyncratic." --
Salon "Should be required reading for anyone in a caregiver position. . . . Blends centuries-old medical wisdom, current research, and observation of his own patients into an engaging summary of every way our brains seek to depart from reality." --
St. Louis Post-Dispatch "A thoughtful and compassionate look at the phantoms our brains can produce." --NPR
"Wondrous." --
Elle "A super-fascinating and accessible-to-lay-people adventure in neuroscience. . . . Sacks is crazy-smart, and it shows. But he's also just flat-out amazed by the brain, and it's an enthusiasm you can't help but catch." --Book Riot
"Amazing. . . . Sacks's temperament . . . facilitates that extraordinary humanity, that loving curiosity about the experiences of other people, that near-magical ability to see how even the most seemingly devastating losses may be remedied by the mind's remarkable powers of compensation." --
Bookforum
