The Mind's Eye

Neurologist Sacks (www.oliversacks.com), who in Musicophila (2007) explored the human sense of hearing, once again mines his practice for fascinating case studies, this time to explore another sense, that of sight. In discussing the experiences of six individuals whose vision-related maladies force creative and often astonishing coping and adaptive behaviors, he talks of patients' inability to recognize faces, their late acquisition and loss of three-dimensional vision, and more. Sacks introduces each story, which is then read matter-of-factly by actor Richard Davidson. Sacks poignantly reads the chapter titled "Persistence of Vision"—about his own gradual loss of vision in one eye as the result of ocular cancer. A strong choice for nonfiction collections. ["The author's well-known style creatively balances complex medical discussion…with solid, down-to-earth prose," read the review of the zNew York Times best-selling Knopf hc, LJ 10/1/10.—Ed.]—Kristen L. Smith, Loras Coll. Lib., Dubuque, IA