Everything in Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales

I first knew of Oliver Sacks from his appearances on Radio Lab, where his gentle lilting voice and unstemmable, loving curiosity about the world, especially the people in it, was both compelling and quite moving. You may know Sacks for his work with patients with unusual neurological conditions–his book Awakenings inspired the Robin Williams movie of the same name. In losing Sacks, we’ve lost not only a staggeringly brilliant and insightful mind but a genuinely kind and good person. His description of the experience of swimming in the first chapter alone is so delicious and inspiring that it left me briefly astounded.

Through Sacks’ eyes, we re-experience the world as though it were brand new–sensuous and bright and endlessly fascinating. As I, unfortunately, don’t have the written skill of Sacks, I can’t capture the pure joy and delight of his words, but I can urge you, beg you, to read this. No other experience compares.