Oliver Sacks, M.D.

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Awakening the Mind: World Science Festival Tribute to Oliver Sacks

April 26, 2016 / Kate Edgar / News

We are thrilled to announce an upcoming tribute to the remarkable life and work of Dr. Oliver Sacks produced by the World Science Festival. Dr. Sacks, a longtime contributor to the Festival, will be the subject of this year’s opening night event, June 1, 2016 in New York City.

With stories from Dr. Sacks himself, as well as his friends, colleagues, and patients, this multi-media evening of music, image, and language reveals much about this extraordinary man who had an incalculable impact on the worlds of medicine and storytelling.

AWAKENING THE MIND: A Celebration of the Life and Work of Oliver Sacks

Wednesday, June 1, 2016 8:00PM

NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 LaGuardia Place, New York, NY 10012
Tickets (general admission) are now on sale.

Do you live outside New York City?  Why not organize an event in your own community to meet other Sacks readers and livestream the program? The WSF will provide your group with free access to the program content, and you can add your own guest speakers or discussion groups. Can you think of a local organization that would like to sponsor an Oliver Sacks night–perhaps a university, school, museum, library, science club or arts organization? Let us know how we can help!

For more information regarding WSF Live streaming partnerships, click here.

Best wishes,
The Sacks Team
On the Move is now in paperback!

On the Move — again!

February 24, 2016 / Kate Edgar / News

Our good friend Steve Silberman (“Neurotribes”) recently listed his five favorite books on autism for FiveBooks.com. He adds this observation about Dr. Sacks’s work:

“Oliver was interested not just in studying what deficits and impairments his patients had, but also in what gave them joy, resilience and a sense of purpose. He would then ally himself with these sources of strength so they could learn to use their potentially devastating conditions as opportunities for adaptation, renewal, reinvention and growth.”

“We already understand the value of biodiversity in a rainforest,” says Silberman. “The same is true of any community of human minds.”

Dr. Sacks’s book Gratitude is still on the New York Times bestseller list, and we thank you all for your support!  It is now available in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Brazil, with more translations coming soon.

On the Move is now available in a beautiful new paperback edition from Vintage Books in the US and Canada, and from Picador in the UK.

The Science Friday Book Club selected On the Move this month, and you can listen to what Maria Popova, Danielle Ofri and others have to say about the book here. Also check out Science Friday’s great website extras about the book.

We at the Oliver Sacks Foundation are on the move, as well. Please write to us at our new office:

The Oliver Sacks Foundation
535 West 23rd Street
Suite SPH2B
New York, New York 10011

Days of Gratitude

December 14, 2015 / Kate Edgar / News
Happy holidays and greetings from the Oliver Sacks Foundation! It has been a remarkable year, one of sadness and joy, but above all, thankfulness for Dr. Sacks’s full and remarkable life.

His newest book, Gratitude, was published last month in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil, with other translations coming soon. It brings together the four inspiring essays written in the final months of his life, in which Dr. Sacks reflects on growing old, coming to terms with mortality, and—most importantly—being thankful for the gift of living one’s own life.

 

Gratitude has been met with wonderful reviews and is already a New York Times bestseller.

Meanwhile, On the Move continues to receive great reviews, and has appeared on a number of year-end “best of” lists. Together, these two books form an exquisite capstone to a truly extraordinary life.

We are grateful to you for sharing this journey with us, and this week, we will launch our #DaysOfGratitude campaign. Over the next two weeks we will feature previously unpublished photos of Dr. Sacks and other features on our social media channels, celebrating the life and work of Dr. Sacks and the impact it has had on various communities across the globe.

What are you grateful for? We invite you to share your own thoughts on life, death, and gratitude on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

Wishing you and yours—and the entire planet—a peaceful, healthy, holiday season.

The Sacks Office

PS: Collective thanks to all who have written to us in the last few months—we love hearing from you!

Announcing “Gratitude”

October 25, 2015 / Kate Edgar / News

We are proud to announce the upcoming publication of a new book by Dr. Sacks: titled Gratitude, it brings together in one volume four gemlike essays written over the last two years of his life and first read by millions worldwide in The New York Times.

 

It begins with Dr. Sacks’s essay on turning 80, originally titled “The Joy of Old Age.” In it, he writes that embracing old age has brought “not a shrinking but an enlargement of mental life and perspective.”  Rarely has an essay struck a nerve as this piece did; it was the #1 most e-mailed article in the Times for an entire month.

In January of 2015, only a few weeks after he completed the manuscript of his new memoir, On the Move, Dr. Sacks received the news that a rare, uveal form of melanoma had metastasized to his liver. Within days of the diagnosis, he began writing “My Own Life,” in which he expressed an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. “Above all,” he wrote, “I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.” This essay, too, went viral.

In July, he published “My Periodic Table,” in which he spoke of the sense of awe and eternity inspired by an expansive night sky filled with stars, and about his deep love for science and nature, for metals and elements (“little emblems of eternity”), and for lemurs.

Finally, Gratitude contains Sacks’s last essay, published only two weeks before his death. In “Sabbath,” he writes, “I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual, but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life — achieving a sense of peace within oneself.”

 

Together, these four extraordinary essays form an ode to the uniqueness of each human being and to gratitude for the gift of life.

Gratitude will be published worldwide, in hardcover, e-book, and audiobook formats, beginning November 24. It is available for preorder now from your local bookseller or online bookstore.

A Life Well Lived

August 30, 2015 / Kate Edgar / News
Oliver Sacks, London, May 2015 by Bill Hayes

Oliver Sacks, London, May 2015 by Bill Hayes

Oliver Sacks died early this morning at his home in Greenwich Village, surrounded by his close friends and family. He was 82. He spent his final days doing what he loved—playing the piano, writing to friends, swimming, enjoying smoked salmon, and completing several articles. His final thoughts were of gratitude for a life well lived and the privilege of working with his patients at various hospitals and residences including the Little Sisters of the Poor in the Bronx and in Queens, New York.

Dr. Sacks was writing to the last. On August 14, he published an essay, “Sabbath,” in the New York Times. Two more articles are to be published this week, one in the New York Review of Books and one in the New Yorker.

Oliver Sacks at work, August Photo by Bill Hayes

Oliver Sacks at work, February 2015
Photo by Bill Hayes

Sacks also left several nearly completed books and a vast archive of correspondence, manuscripts, and journals. Before his death Sacks established the Oliver Sacks Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to increasing understanding of the human brain and mind through the power of narrative nonfiction and case histories.

The foundation’s goals include making Dr. Sacks’s published and yet-unpublished writings available to the broadest possible audience, preserving and digitizing materials related to his life and work and making them available for scholarly use, working to reduce the stigma of mental and neurological illness, and supporting a humane approach to neurology and psychiatry.

We at the Sacks office extend our love and sympathies to Dr. Sacks’s partner, Billy Hayes, and we are enormously grateful for the outpouring of love and support from Dr. Sacks’s readers and friends around the world.

With love from

Kate Edgar, Hallie Parker, Yolanda Rueda, Hailey Wojcik, and Kai Furbeck

Gratitude

August 14, 2015 / Kate Edgar / News
Dr. Sacks has greatly enjoyed reading your letters, emails, and guestbook comments. Your stories, appreciations, memories (to say nothing of afghans, salmon, gefilte fish, artworks, photographs, and music) are what keep us all uplifted in the midst of his battle with cancer. We cannot thank you enough for this outpouring of support and affection. It is a daily reminder to the good doctor of his long, adventurous life, the high points of which have always been his communion and conversation with his readers and the privilege of seeing and helping his patients.

As he described in his recent New York Times piece, “My Periodic Table,” he recently visited some lemur friends in North Carolina, thanks to the extraordinary Duke University Lemur Center and its director, Anne Yoder. Below is a photo of Dr. Sacks with his new friend, Pia, a Coquerel’s sifaka.

We are proud to announce the establishment of the Oliver Sacks Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to increasing the public understanding of the human brain and mind through the power of narrative nonfiction and case histories, and to making the world a better place for those with neurological or psychiatric challenges. More info coming soon!

Finally, keep an eye out for Dr. Sacks’s newest article, “Sabbath,” now online at the New York Times and in the upcoming Sunday Times print edition.

The Future of Neurodiversity

June 24, 2015 / Kate Edgar / News

Don’t miss this: Steve Silberman previews his book on the hidden history of autism, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, in this riveting TED talk, just released.

Since June is independent bookseller month (we’re just kidding–every month is indie month!), we tip our hats to indies around the world (including our much-loved landmark neighborhood store, Three Lives in New York City).

But we have to hand it to Unity Books in Wellington, New Zealand. They asked their shop plumber to find a BMW for their display of On the Move, and came up with this vintage R75. Thank you, Tilly Lloyd and wonderful staff!
(Photo by Matt Bialostocki)

 

Do you ever mistake “fire crackers” for “choir practice”? Dr. Sacks wrote about mishearings in the New York Times last week.

Finally, we are happy to welcome the first foreign translation of On the Move, from Rowohlt Verlag in Germany, who have published all of Dr. Sacks’s books over the years. Danke sehr, Rowohlt friends!

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Love, Lunacy and a Life Well Lived

May 29, 2015 / Kate Edgar / News

Dr. Sacks’ new book, On the Move, was released last month to rave reviews, and made it onto the New York Times bestseller list!

Thanks to Maria Popova at Brain Pickings for her thoughtful coverage of the book, including some vintage photos by the good doctor during his California days. She calls the book “a sublime memoir of love, lunacy, and a life well lived.” While Dr. Sacks is not doing any public events or interviews promoting the new book, he did sit down in front of the camera with filmmaker Ric Burns  several months ago, discussing everything from his approach to writing to his early years at Oxford and even his experiences with amphetamines. Some short excerpts of those interviews are available on our YouTube channel, and a full-length documentary is in the works.

Dr. Sacks was recently featured in Radiolab Live’s event “Tell-Tale Hearts.” He has been a member of the Radiolab family since the beginning, and Jad and Robert did a lovely tribute to him. You can hear the whole episode here (or jump to 31:00 for the segment on OS).

Dr. Sacks is busily writing and enjoying life. Last month he published articles about the autonomic nervous system in the New York Review of Books; about Spalding Gray and brain injury in the New Yorker; and about the a cleaner world in the New Yorker’s Talk of the Town.Yes, this man can write anywhere, even on the roof of someone else’s car!

The Many Lives of Oliver Sacks

April 28, 2015 / Kate Edgar / News
Who is Dr. Oliver Sacks??

All of the above!

These stories and more in On the Move–on sale now–including 32 pages of photos. Please tell your friends!

On the Move is here!

April 7, 2015 / Kate Edgar / News

 

 

The first advance copy of Dr. Sacks’s new book, On the Move, has just arrived from the printer!

Here is one happy author:

We thank you all deeply for the wonderful, moving cards and letters and emails which have poured in since Dr. Sacks wrote about his cancer diagnosis in the New York Times. In the current New York Review of Books, he writes about the aftermath of his cancer treatments and the notion of “feeling good” or “feeling ill.” Right now, we are pleased to report, he is feeling very good, and up to his usual swimming and writing and ferning.

But because Dr. Sacks will not be doing any book signings or interviews for the new book, we are relying entirely on YOU to help spread the word. On the Move is available for pre-order now, and will be officially published in the US, Canada, and the UK on April 28. Here is the UK cover:

Please tell your friends, or forward this post to them. Facebook it! Tweet it!

PS: Special thanks to our web gurus at KPF Digital and Sheep in Disguise for this beautiful new look for our website. Visit our guestbook to find out what people are saying about Dr. Sacks, or to write to him yourself.

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