Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood

Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood

Long before Oliver Sacks became a distinguished neurologist and bestselling writer, he was a small English boy fascinated by metalsâ€“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 Sacksâ€™ extraordinary family, from his surgeon mother (who introduces the fourteen-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 â€œUncle Tungsten,â€ 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 heroesâ€“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.
Country USA
Brand Vintage
Manufacturer Vintage
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber Illustrated
Color Multicolor
ReleaseDate 2002-09-17
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780375704048

Country	USA
Brand	Vintage
Manufacturer	Vintage
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	Illustrated
Color	Multicolor
ReleaseDate	2002-09-17
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780375704048

Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood

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