Letters

Dr. Oliver Sacks—who describes himself in these pages as a “philosophical physician” and a “neuropathological Talmudist”—wrote letters throughout his life: to his parents and his beloved Auntie Len, to friends and colleagues from London, Oxford, California, and around the world. The letters begin with his arrival in America as a young man, eager to establish himself away from the confines of postwar England, and carry us through his bumpy early career in medicine and the discovery of his writer’s voice; his weight-lifting, motorcycle-riding years and his explosive seasons of discovery with the patients who populate his book Awakenings; his growing interest in matters of sight and the musical brain; his many friendships and exchanges with writers, artists, and scientists (to say nothing of astronauts, botanists, and mathematicians), and his deep gratitude for all these relationships at the end of his life.

Sensitively introduced and edited by Kate Edgar, Sacks’s longtime editor, the letters deliver a portrait of Sacks as he wrestles with the workings of the brain and mind. We see, through his eyes, the beginnings of modern neuroscience, following the thought processes of one of the great intellectuals of our time, whose words, as evidenced in these pages, were unfailingly shaped with generosity and wonder toward other people.

Praise for Letters

“Oliver Sacks’s Letters isn’t a book of the year – it’s a book for a lifetime. The great neurologist’s brilliance and humanity is no secret; but here (superbly edited by Kate Edgar) the reader sees his life unfold in real time: his original, challenging work, his love for his family, his unique passions, his evolving relationship to his sexuality. Keep this by your side, dip into it, be reminded of the wonders of our shared humanity.”
—Erica Wagner, The New Statesman

“Six decades of Sacks’s letters have been expertly woven into an effulgent collection of humanistic observations and descriptions, philosophical musings, personal anecdotes, epiphanies and poetry, all of which resonate with grace, gratitude humor and humility … A testament to an extraordinary life, a life full of meaning and method. Sacks’s consistency, his dedication, his love of words, of knowledge, of storytelling, but especially of his patients establishes Sacks as one of the great inspirational voices, thinkers and explorers of our time.” —Richard Horan, The Washington Post

“The first 200 pages of Oliver Sacks’s letters are among the best things I’ve read all year. He was new in America, not long out of Oxford University, writing to family and friends back home, and his observations were electric—wild and funny and befuddled and frank.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“A meticulous, thorough and loving selection that constitutes not only a series of reflections and explorations but also a gripping memoir, a Bildungsroman at one remove… What makes reading through all of these missives delightful is the inescapable gift for metaphor that sparkles on almost every page.” —Willard Spiegelman, The Wall Street Journal

“Sacks showed generations of doctors (and patients) how medicine is just the starting point for an exploration of the possibilities of being human. With these letters, his legacy as an extraordinary writer, humanitarian and physician is secured.” —Gavin Francis, The Observer

“Letters leaves one with the overwhelming impression of a brilliant and vivid mind, a man whose intellectual appetite was vast, and whose professional and creative passions – far from being the self-absorbed obsessions of a pedant – were first and foremost an act of reaching out, the means through which he sought to communicate with others, a “love affair with the world.” —Ralf Webb, The Guardian

“To read these letters is to be reminded of the deeply felt humanism and ebullience that Sacks brought to his prose: They include condolences, replies to fans and long scientific musings that read like dry runs for his books. There isn’t a shred of cynicism or pessimism to be found here, only delight in sharing ideas and enthusiasms with friends, family, colleagues and fans. —Marc Weingarten, Los Angeles Times

“Writing literary letters has become a dying art, and it is possible that this collection might be the last of its kind involving a contemporary author. Although the collection is seven hundred pages long, it represents a fraction of Sacks’s total correspondence (an estimated 200,000 pages filling seventy bankers boxes). —A J Lees, Literary Review

“Gracefully constructed by Sacks’s friend and longtime editor, Kate Edgar, Letters offers an intimate sense of Sacks’s intensity, internal conflicts, whimsy, ambition, and profound interest in how the human condition is expressed through our biology and our culture. His letters show a man who feared abandonment and craved acknowledgment but discovered through his practice the rewards of his great gifts of feeling, of thoughtfulness, and of care. I am a doctor, I can help, he said as a young man in the wilderness. Letters show how his long and fruitful life came to fully embody that simple statement.” —Michael S. Roth, The Atlantic 

“Here is the unedited Oliver Sacks — struggling, passionate, a furiously intelligent misfit. And also endless interesting. He was a man like no other.” —Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal

“Here is Oliver Sacks annealed. All his largehearted curiosity, all his childlike wonder at how everything coheres, all the self-doubt trembling beneath his brilliance, come alive on these pages. One is left magnified just by bearing witness to this vast and solitary mind, searching for connection and discovering himself.” —Maria Popova, author of Figuring

“Be prepared to discover a world of human treasures in the letters of Oliver Sacks. Sacks wrote copiously to family and friends, as expected, but he also wrote abundantly to several colleagues in the universe of biology, neuroscience and psychology, during a seminal period (which includes the last two decades of the twentieth century and the first two decades of the twenty-first). One marvel here is that Sacks’ literary genius manages to reveal both sides of a conversation, although we are only made privy to his perspective on the issues.” —Antonio Damasio, author of Feeling and Knowing

“Edgar—the longtime assistant, editor, and researcher for Sacks (1933–2015)—provides an intimate window into the neurologist’s personal and professional lives in this expansive collection of his correspondence. Sacks’s trademark lyricism is evident throughout. . . . What emerges is a pointillistic portrait of an incredible intellect with all-too-human frailties and an insatiable curiosity about the human condition. This is an essential resource for understanding Sacks.” —Publishers Weekly

Special event to celebrate Letters

We celebrated the publication of Letters on November 7, 2024 at 92Y in NYC by inviting guest writers and artists to reade from the book.

Why not give Letters to a loved one? Read our Oliver Sacks gift guide.