The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales (1973) is British neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks’s fourth book. Sacks is a renowned physician, professor, and writer whom the New York Times calls “the poet laureate of medicine.” Sacks is best known for his 1973 memoir Awakenings, in which he explores the history of the encephalitis lethargica epidemic. In 1990, the story was adapted into a critically acclaimed movie starring Robin Williams as Sacks and Robert De Niro as his patient. As a writer, Sacks displays incredible knowledge of neurology, the history of the field, and the medical theories and practices of neurologists. In his numerous case histories and memoirs, Sacks seeks to make complex material accessible through the use of storytelling, attention to the human beings he studies, and probing existential questions about what it is to be a human.

Although the book is written using complex neurological terminology, it is designed to be overall accessible. Especially in the cases where Sacks does not have easy answers, he raises philosophical questions about what it means to be a whole human being. Sacks often quotes philosophers like Ludwig Wittgenstein and Friedrich Nietzsche.