20B20W - 12th book, An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks

I finally managed to read this book which has been on my wishlist for a while. I knew almost nothing about the book, knew that the author was a celebrated writer and has been a neurologist.

The book is an amazing read, written in a simple manner with the lucidity of an expert communicator and the empathy of an understanding parent. Sacks is one of a kind. Amongst other things it did to me, it lent renewed meaning to the expression "in my senses" and a sense of gratitude for the same. A lot of our perceptions and feelings including having "sympathy" for blind people and handicapped people in general, is forced to be re-examined based on the author's fascinating narration of various anecdotes throughout the book.

One striking example is the unwittingly done debunking of a popular plot device in several movies (and perhaps in a lot of books too) wherein a congenitally blind person gains vision through surgery and how and why that is incongruent with the experiences of various such patients in reality.

Must read book