Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood

by OliverSacks (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2001

  $11.89

  This memoir from Oliver Sacks is both a departure from and an enhancement of his previous psychologically orientated 'medical' writing. Not only is it a beautifully written account of an English childhood - seasoned by a childish passion for science - but it is told from the intimate and revelatory perspective of one of the most important and humane writers on psychology alive today. Oliver Sacks has the literary artistry of W.H. Auden and the intellectual rigour and questioning mind of Stephen Jay Gould. The world authority in his field, this is a remarkable insight into the mind and background of one of the finest and most accessible scientists today. Case history as literature, in the most personal, delightful and fascinating way possible.

• Used

  Paperback
  2010

  $3.27

  In Uncle Tungsten Sacks evokes, with warmth and wit, his upbringing in wartime England. He tells of the large science-steeped family who fostered his early fascination with chemistry. There follow his years at boarding school where, though unhappy, he developed the intellectual curiosity that would shape his later life. And we hear of his return to London, an emotionally bereft ten-year-old who found solace in his passion for learning. Uncle Tungsten radiates all the delight and wonder of a boy's adventures, and is an unforgettable portrait of an extraordinary young mind. If you did not think that gallium and iridium could move you, this superb book will change your mind . (The Times). The amalgamation of personal recollection and scientific history makes a luminous, inspiring book . ( Sunday Telegraph ). Uncle Tungsten is really about the raw joy of scientific understanding; what it is like to be a precocious child discovering the alchemical secrets of reality for the first time; the sheer thrill of finding intelligible patterns in nature . ( Guardian ).