Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood

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"If you did not think that gallium and iridium could move you, this superb book will change your mind." The Times 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. PRAISE FOR UNCLE TUNGSTEN "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 "This book is both a heartwarming account of a delightful, eccentric family life and an inspiring record of a remarkable intellectual odyssey" Mail on Sunday

Reviews

This book is both a heartwarming account of a delightful, eccentric family life and an inspiring record of a remarkable intellectual odyssey. Mail on Sunday 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

Author Bio

Oliver Sacks was born in 1933 in London and was educated at Queen's College, Oxford. He completed his medical training at San Francisco's Mount Zion Hospital and at UCLA before moving to New York, where he soon encountered the patients whom he would write about in his book Awakenings. Dr Sacks spent almost fifty years working as a neurologist and wrote many books, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia, and Hallucinations, about the strange neurological predicaments and conditions of his patients. The New York Times referred to him as 'the poet laureate of medicine.' His memoir, On the Move, was published shortly before his death in August 2015. For more information, please visit www.oliversacks.com.