The title of the book "An Anthropologist On Mars" (1995) is a quote by Temple Grandin, whose story is one of the "seven paradoxical tales" presented here. By the way, go here and here for great BrainScience podcasts with and about Temple Grandin, who is probably the worlds best known person with autism. In all of these tales, including the one about Grandin, Oliver Sacks describes his encounters with persons who have quite abnormal (acquired or innate) brain functions. The topics include color blindness, frontal lobe dysfunction, Tourette's syndrome, adult sight recovery, and variants of autism, and the tales are presented as syntheses of case studies with broader scientific and philosophical discussions.

The tales are paradoxical in the sense that the psychological-neurological conditions, which at first glance seem extremely disturbing, often are revealed as multilayered, partially recessive, or even as conveying certain strengths. A surgeon with Tourette's syndrome is jumping around in the hospital corridors, but is able to perform exquisite surgery. A painter who goes color blind enters a period of artistic creativity in his new "gray" world. But having said this, the book is not all about "feel-good" stories, some of the cases end quite tragically.

I especially enjoyed reading about Oliver Sack's personal engagement with his patients. Sometimes very outspoken, and sometimes more subtle, his own traits are exposed, reminding the reader that many (all?) psychological-neurological functions are non-discrete, and rather form a continuum, where the definitions of health and illness may be quite arbitrary.