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Books

Oliver Sacks bids farewell in style

In Gratitude, his valedictory memoir, the gifted doctor finally achieves a sense of peace with himself after a life well lived

12 December 2015

9:00 AM

12 December 2015

9:00 AM

Gratitude Oliver Sacks

Knopf, pp.48, £9.99, ISBN: 9781509822805

‘I cannot say there is no vanity in making this funeral oration of myself, but I hope it is not a misplaced one,’ wrote David Hume on the eve of his death in 1776, under the title, ‘My Own Life’. It is with this same title that, accepting the inevitable progression of metastatic cancer in his liver at the age of 81, Oliver Sacks paid tribute to his favourite philosopher.

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