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Uncle Tungsten
- Memories of a Chemical Boyhood
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Long before Oliver Sacks became a distinguished neurologist and best-selling writer, he was a small English boy fascinated by metals - also by chemical reactions (the louder and smellier the better), photography, squids and cuttlefish, H.G. Wells, and the periodic table.
In this endlessly charming and eloquent memoir, the author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Awakenings chronicles his love affair with science and the magnificently odd and sometimes harrowing childhood in which that love affair unfolded.
In Uncle Tungsten we meet Sacks' extraordinary family, from his surgeon mother (who introduces the 14-year-old Oliver to the art of human dissection) and his father, a family doctor who imbues in his son an early enthusiasm for housecalls, to his "Uncle Tungsten", whose factory produces tungsten-filament lightbulbs. We follow the young Oliver as he is exiled at the age of six to a grim, sadistic boarding school to escape the London Blitz, and later watch as he sets about passionately reliving the exploits of his "chemical heroes" in his own home laboratory.
Uncle Tungsten is a crystalline view of a brilliant young mind springing to life, a story of growing up which is by turns elegiac, comic, and wistful, full of the electrifying joy of discovery.
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- D. A. Beatty
- 2018-09-07
A masterpiece
First, be aware that, like Sacks, you must have a science-curious mind to enjoy this book, since much of it is devoted to the history of chemistry. This is fitting, as it parallels the boyhood of Sacks, who was obsessed with chemistry and whose voyage of discovery recapitulated this history. There are also many poignant personal moments, insightful family stories, and humorous situations drawn from his large and very talented family. And just like Sacks' life, these are woven together with his escapism into chemistry. The narrator's voice, to my mind, felt like Sacks himself.
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