On the Move

Oliver Sacks's second autobiography, following Uncle Tungsten, opens with his youthful obsession with motorcycles and speed and follows his early 1960s years as a young neurologist. In California he struggled with drug addiction, and in New York he came upon an illness long forgotten in the back wards of a hospital for chronic patients, as his work with patients came to define his life. Sacks writes about weight lifting and swimming, romantic and intellectual love affairs, guilt over leaving his family for America, and his bond with his schizophrenic brother. He also describes the writers and scientists who influenced him, among them Francis Crick, W. H. Auden, A. R. Luria and Thom Gunn.

Andrew Huberman recommended it highly to anyone who wants to understand the arc of medicine and culture.