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Awakenings

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About this listen

'The story of a disease that plunged its victims into a prison of viscous time, and the drug that catapulted them out of it' – Guardian

Hailed as a medical classic, and the subject of a major feature film as well as radio and stage plays and various TV documentaries, Awakenings by Oliver Sacks is the extraordinary account of a group of twenty patients.

Rendered catatonic by the sleeping-sickness epidemic that swept the world just after the First World War, all twenty had spent forty years in hospital: motionless and speechless; aware of the world around them, but exhibiting no interest in it – until Dr Sacks administered the then-new drug, L-DOPA, which caused them, temporarily, to awake from their decades-long slumber . . .

 Brain & Nervous System Essays Neuroscience & Neuropsychology Physical Illness & Disease Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Mental Health Health

Critic reviews

A brilliant and humane book.
It makes you aware of what a knife edge we live on. (Doris Lessing)
Not only a collection of astonishing case histories, Awakenings is also a memoir, a moral essay and a romance. It is a work of genius.
All stars
Most relevant
Really enjoyed the book and the revisitations at the end of it, especially those concerned with the film and stage adaptation of Awakenings.

Enjoyably extended from the original, well read

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Amazing achievement!
The nature of the book requires active listening and can at times be a hard listen, that said it's definitely one that adds a nuance to the world as you know it.
You walk away feeling as though you too had visited the patients and seen the miraculous awakenings of Mount Carmel :)

Mesmerising

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This is the best of Oliver Sacks works that I have read so far. So deep, so complete..personality, physiology and pathology brought together.

Incredible!

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What a story to tell! I’m redo my interesting and well written. I loved how he looked at the whole scenario from multiple, and not just a medicinal perspective. A great listen/read.

An incredible story

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Sadly I could not finish this book because I found it very difficult to follow along with the medical explanations and very in-depth diagnosis descriptions that somebody with no medical knowledge will probably find difficult to understand. I really wanted to hear about this type of phenomenon and illness, but unfortunately it was just too technical for me to follow.

Sadly a difficult read for lay person

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