Oliver Sacks vividly demonstrates in this book the extraordinary capacities of individuals afflicted with neurological diseases and defects "to adapt and reconstruct themselves." The author of Awakenings tells these startling and affecting stories of metamorphosis with compassion and insight. There is an artist who becomes color blind after an accident. After much consternation, he accepts his condition as a strange gift, enabling him to explore subjects unvisited by others. There is a surgeon with Tourette's syndrome who is miraculously still while performing operations. And there is an artist with a photographic memory who is able to recall and paint every inch of an Italian town where he grew up. These seven paradoxical tales beautifully told by Oliver Sacks leave us with a deep appreciation for human adaptability and for the creative potential of illness.