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Awakenings | 
| Author: Oliver W. Sacks
Publisher: Perennial
Category: Book
New (3) Used (17) from £0.33
Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 321641
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 464
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.5 x 1.3
ISBN: 0060973684
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.832
EAN: 9780060973681
ASIN: 0060973684
Publication Date: November 1990
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
It hardly seems fair that so many great doctors are also great writers. Perhaps it's qualities like sensitivity, craft and dedication that keep physicians like Oliver Sacks in hospitals all day and at writing desks all night; if nothing else, these qualities shine in books like Awakenings. This powerful set of case histories rises above its pathological foundation to find new literary territory, a medical-spiritual synthesis equally stimulating for the mind and the soul. It's no wonder Hollywood chose to turn it into a feature film--anyone can see the universal human struggle against bondage and despair in these pages.The sleeping-sickness epidemic of 1918 caused hundreds of survivors to slip into a bizarre rigid paralysis with similarities to advanced Parkinson's disease. These patients, only occasionally able to communicate or move, were nearly all institutionalised for life, their ranks increasing every now and then with similarly afflicted men and women. Sacks came to work at a long-term care facility shortly before the first exciting results with L-DOPA and Parkinson's in the late 1960s and his patients soon embarked on dramatic, difficult recoveries from up to 50 years of torpor. He documents their spiritual and medical obstacles with great care to portray their individual personalities, long suppressed but finally released. Though many great doctors are also great writers, few can compare with Oliver Sacks for expressing the relation of medicine to the human spirit. --Rob Lightner
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| Customer Reviews:
 A wonderful book about a complex and intriguing condition. September 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is one of the best books I have ever read. It relates the "awakenings" experienced by post-"sleepy sickness" patients who survived the 1920's epidemic to live with deeply Parkinsonian symptoms. Real Rip-Van-Winkles woke up to changed selves and changed worlds.
This account of the disease's progress, the patients' experience, and the effects of L-dopa is overwhelming in its truth, sincerity, and above all, its humanity.
I particularly enjoyed the section at the end of the book in this edition, where one gains an insight into other ways to understand the disease, including the use of non-linear equations, and the application of Chaos theory to understand the side effects of L-dopa.
 Great book, bad smell May 29, 2008
2 out of 12 found this review helpful
This is an excellent book, unfortunately for me the paperback is printed on cheap, smelly paper which makes me feel ill when I read it. I ordered the hardcover, but was sent another paperback. I returned the paperback and asked for a hardcover, another paperback arrived. Summary: If you want a copy of this book and have any allergies or breathing problems, I recommend getting a hardcover, but not the one that Amazon sells, because they'll just send you a paperback.
 Not the easiest of reads, but worth the effort June 12, 2003
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
If you are looking for 'the book of the film' you may be disappointed. If you have enjoyed reading other Oliver Sacks books you may also be disappointed. However, it is definitely worth the effort as it is more illuminating than the film, if less dramatic---but no less tragic for that. The book is more technical than one might expect; plenty of case histories and medical information. But Sacks is a humanist with compassion for his patients, and this still shines through the more 'dry' format of the text. I'm glad I stuck with the book as it explains much that simply isn't possible in a film---which has different objectives in any case.I enjoyed this book, though not as much as some of his other work, and acknowledge that it may not be for everyone.
Awakenings: the full story behind the film March 29, 1999
23 out of 24 found this review helpful
You'll probably have seen the Robert de Niro film. This is the original book by neurologist Oliver Sacks, describing the L-dopamine drug trials that awakened patients 'frozen' for decades by Parkinsonian symptoms. A harrowing but sympathetic account, the book has room for the complexities missed by the film. After dramatic initial awakenings, the unpredictability of drug reactions gave varied patient histories that ranged from disastrous relapse to modest long-term success. Far less 'feelgood', but ultimately more hopeful, than the film.
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