The Sunday Magazine

Remembering Oliver Sacks

We play an excerpt from Michael's conversation with Oliver Sacks in 2001, about his memoir, "Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood".
Dr. Oliver Sacks speaks about Alzheimer's disease to an audience at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Conn. (October 26, 2005) (Credit: Johnathon Henninger/Connecticut Post via AP)

The distinguished neurologist Oliver Sacks died last week at the age of 82. For decades, he captivated readers and audiences all over the world  with his accounts of the way the human mind works. He was both a scientist and a humanist. In his many books, such as Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat , Oliver Sacks applied his genius to the vagaries of human experience.

 We have an excerpt from a conversation he had with Michael in December, 2001. The occasion was the publication of a memoir of his childhood in London, during and just after World War ll. The book is called Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, after one of his uncles who had a light bulb factory.