On the move [a life] / Oliver Sacks.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780804192316 :
- ISBN: 0804192316 :
- ISBN: 9780804192293
- ISBN: 0804192294
- Physical Description: 10 audio discs (12 hr.) : CD audio, digital ; 4 3/4 in.
- Publisher: Westminster, Md. : Books on Tape ; [2015]
Content descriptions
General Note: | Title from web page. Compact disc. Unabridged. |
Formatted Contents Note: | On the move -- Leaving the nest -- San Francisco -- Muscle beach -- Out of reach -- Awakenings -- The bull on the mountain -- A matter of identity -- City island -- Voyages -- A new vision of the mind -- Home. |
Participant or Performer Note: | Read by Dan Woren. |
Summary, etc.: | From its opening pages on his youthful obsession with motorcycles and speed, and infused with his restless energy. As he recounts his experiences as a young neurologist in the early 1960s, first in California, where he struggled with drug addiction and then in New York, where he discovered a long-forgotten illness in the back wards of a chronic hospital, we see how his engagement with patients comes to define his life. |
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | Sacks, Oliver W. Neurologists > England > Biography. Neurologists > United States > Biography. Audiobooks. |
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Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at GRPL.

BookList Review
On the Move : A Life
Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
*Starred Review* Sacks characterizes himself primarily as a storyteller, the son of storytellers mother and father both rather than as a physician, the other identity he shares with both parents. He's melded those roles in a string of best-selling collections of case histories from his practice as a clinical neurologist. Anyone pleased by any of them will be enthralled with his own story, which he fills out with not just the personal reasons, such as making fascinating friends, but also the scientific ones, such as contributing to new conceptions of brain function, that make what he tells us worth telling. He also, perhaps all unawares, reveals himself as a restless achiever and a bit of a daredevil. If avidly reading historic medical literature from adolescence on seems entirely appropriate to a writing clinician, surely youthful passions for motorcycling and weightlifting (on early-'60s Muscle Beach, yet) are a bit surprising (when injuries quashed those pursuits, Sacks fell back on hard swimming and scuba diving). And if strong late friendships with the stars of brain research seem inevitable, others begun well before he was famous, such as with the poets W. H. Auden and Thom Gunn, attest the estheticism in him that is the mainspring of his 2007 best-seller, Musicophilia. That Sacks is homosexual barely glints among the other lights of his long, eventful life. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: That the author's previous books have been popular in libraries should more than suggest that most public librarians need to have this new one in their collection.--Olson, Ray Copyright 2015 Booklist

Library Journal Review
On the Move : A Life
Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Sacks's (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat) memoir engages listeners in the many and varying tales of his life, from his work with patients to his love of motorcycles. What makes this work especially compelling is the author's wonderful way of telling a story. Sacks is known for his skill in translating the art and science of medicine into accounts that are enjoyed by a wide range of people; his memoir is told with the same appealing style and is read with flair by Dan Woren. The audio version is a good choice for on-the-go listening as it is presented in smaller segments and can be followed without remembering all of the previous details. VERDICT This title will appeal to those who are interested in medicine and in Sacks as well as those who want to hear the life story of a doctor who may not fit the preconceived notion of a physician. ["For fans of Sacks, those who enjoy biographies, and anyone with an interest in medical or neurological work": LJ 4/15/15 review of the Knopf hc.]-Eric D. Albright, Tufts Hirsh Health Science Lib., Boston © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review
On the Move : A Life
Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Sacks, an esteemed neurologist and the author of such bestsellers as Awakenings (1973) and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1983), offers a candid memoir chronicling his colorful personal and professional journey, made all the more poignant given his recent diagnosis of terminal cancer. Actor and voice-over artist Woren delivers a generally pleasant and competent reading of the audio edition of the momentous title. Yet somehow his delivery does not match the emotional power found in Sacks's narrative. It doesn't help matters that-even though Sacks is a native of the United Kingdom-Woren chooses not to add any traces of a British accent in his performance of the first-person elements of the book, though he does provide a mix of accents for various supporting figures sprinkled into the real-life events. Given such intense subject matter as wild experimentation with LSD and similar hallucinogens in the 1960s, extreme sports and California body-building culture, mingling with the literary and pop-culture elite of the past half century, and of course numerous groundbreaking medical discoveries, Woren's mild approach just doesn't fit the occasion. A Knopf hardcover. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.