Today: Hallucinating is not just reserved for those with psychotic disorders, wandering the desert, or in drug-induced states. According to Oliver Sacks, neurologist and author of Hallucinations (Knopf, $27), it is a “common part of the human experience” which he will be discussing at Sixth and I Historic Synagogue at 7 p.m.
In Hallucinations, Sacks says that these sensory distortions most often occur for reasons like fever, injuries, exhaustion, and grief, and that we can thank them for many of our “mythological traditions, literary inventions, and religious epiphanies.” Examples are provided from Sacks’ personal experiences with migraines and LSD, accounts from his clients, and renown figures such as Aldous Huxley to Lewis Carroll. He explains how hallucinations work, and how everyone’s brain has the potential to hallucinate.
Sacks is an NYU professor of neurology and is the author behind many bestselling books including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Awakenings (which inspired the Oscar-nominated film of the same name). He is known for writing about biological topics in an accessible and captivating way.
Tickets are being sold online for $15 or $25 for a ticket and book purchase, and doors open at 6 p.m. Signed books can also be purchased online at Politics and Prose’s website.
Saturday, July 20: There are lots of books full of advice and philosophies on how to get ahead in your career. What makes The Art of Doing: How Superachievers Do What They Do and How They Do It So Well (Plume, $16) different? Authors Camille Sweeney and Josh Gosfield interviewed celebrities, businesspeople, and “iconoclastic achievers” about how they reached the tipping point of success, and compiled their “illuminating, surprising, and profoundly inspiring” responses into chapters like “How to Be Funny (on TV)”, “How to Be the Most Fabulous You”, “How to Create a Great Company Culture”, and “How to Write a Runaway Bestseller”.
Sweeney and Gosfield will speak on their book at 3:30 p.m. at Politics and Prose. As one can tell from the table of contents, The Art of Doing explores methods of achievement in a variety of fields: Actor Alec Baldwin weighs in, along with baseball great Yogi Berra, Zappos CEO Tony Hseih, Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings, and other titans in photojournalism, country music, architecture, alien hunting, pornography and more.
These stories are meant to motivate readers to take next steps, even if that requires starting with the kind of “brutal self-assessment” undertaken at some point by most of the book’s interviewees. NBC Weekend Today said that The Art of Doing reveals practical ways to “follow your dream, keep your focus, [not] take ‘no’ for an answer, and keep your vision ahead of you.”
The authors live in New York City; Sweeney is a journalist and Gosfield is an award-winning illustrator and former arts director at New York magazine. Their January article based on The Art of Doing was on the New York Times’ “Most Emailed” list.
The talk is free, and the question-and-answer session will be followed by a book signing.
