Gratitude

The late Oliver Sacks was a neurologist who wrote eloquently about medical topics until he was taken from us by cancer in 2015.

Before he died, he wrote four lovely essays talking about his illness, and the great privilege of being human. Sacks was one of our greatest writers, thoughtful and incisive. Because he was dying as he wrote this, you may wish to wait to digest this book if you have recently experienced the loss of a loved one, and come back to it when you’re in a better place.

Oliver Sacks was a pioneer in writing about the varieties of the mind, particularly describing his patients with neurological conditions and differences. In many ways, he was talking about neurodiversity even before we had a name for it. This book was written as he was dying of cancer, as he reflected on an important emotion – gratitude. He makes an eloquent case for being grateful for all the simple, beautiful things that life offers and that we often take for granted, and how the emotion of gratitude changes your relationship to the world, to others, and to yourself. This is… show more.

Oliver Sacks is a famous psychologist who started to become more and more spiritual with age with the ability to combine his scientific approach to his wisdom. When he found out that he only had a few months to live he decided to spend his last time focusing on the good side of his life and the gift he received instead of focusing on sadness and desperation.

This book is the result of that period and is a fantastic journey through the benefits of gratitude and of being grateful.