Four essays by Sacks examining his life in his early 80s after leaning he has incurable metastasized cancer. Instead of gloomy and depressed, Sacks is filled with gratitude for the life he's lived.

I suspect that I will come back to this at different times in my life when I am more in need of his message. ( )

A hope-filled postscript of a fulfilled life ( )

Oliver Sacks died in August 2015 at his home in Greenwich Village, surrounded by his close friends and family. He was 82. He spent his final days doing what he loved: playing the piano, swimming, enjoying smoked salmon – and writing . . .

As Dr Sacks looked back over his long, adventurous life his final thoughts were of gratitude. In a series of remarkable, beautifully written and uplifting meditations, in Gratitude Dr Sacks reflects on and gives thanks for a life well lived, and expresses his thoughts on growing old, facing terminal cancer and reaching the end.

Lovely book! ( )

I wanted to continue reading this man's work after having read one of his books, and it was probably a wrong choice, since it has left me questioning my life in the search for something unique to do with it, in a time when my immature thoughts conflict with the need to contribute in some field these years that will be given to me. The philosophy is so painful that eventually all you can do is stop thinking at all or start thinking scientifically; there's no in between. These are the thoughts that this book generated in my mind, although the view of Oliver is much brighter and optimistic than my own, a fact quite ironic if one considers that he wrote his final breath on this book and here I am sixty years younger than he was, wondering curiously and wishing for my future life to have an impact and to offer something important to the world. So many thoughts, so many feelings since I realize that even a man of his accomplishments has a tiny voice inside pushing him to want to do more and know more and explore everything this world has to offer. And it's almost terrifying to see from the view of a brilliant dead man through his biographic pages and realising that noone can actually do everything because then people would live in a state of constant panic. I will close this huge and probably unimportant monologue saying that whatever contains the thoughts and points of view of this man is remarkable and I definitely recommend it to be read. ( )