On the Move: A Life

The surprises in Oliver Sacks's autobiography begin with the cover: if your image of Dr. Sacks is rumpled, white-coated, and white-bearded, prepare to expand it to include the dashing, leather-clad motorcyclist of his youth too. Sacks was a scientific prodigy, but also a record-setting powerlifter, an amphetamine addict, an ambivalent homosexual, and a sloppy researcher who took decades to find his metier as a clinician and writer, and he brings to this endlessly entertaining and surprising memoir the same tenderness and delighted curiosity that have made his case histories so beloved.