"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 Oliver Sacks is a physician and the author of eleven books, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Awakenings (which inspired the Oscar-nominated film) and, most recently, The Mind's Eye. He lives in New York City, where he is Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at Columbia University. He is the first, and only, Columbia University Artist, and is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He was appointed Commander of the British Empire in 2008.
