"Magical . . . Sacks's fans are in for a treat." –Kirkus
"An explorer of that most wonderous of islands, the human brain," writes D.M. Thomas in
The New York Times Book Review, "Oliver Sacks also loves the oceanic kind of islands." Both kinds figure movingly in this book–part travelogue, part autobiography, part medical mystery story–in which Sacks's journeys to a tiny Pacific atoll and the island of Guam become explorations of the time, and the complexities of being human.
"Sacks's total immersion in islands life makes this luminous, beautifully written report a wonderous voyage of discovery. As a travel writer, Sacks ranks with Paul Theroux and Bruce Chatwin. As an investigator of the mind's mysteries, he is in a class by himself."
–Publishers Weekly