Of the many remarkable essays on medical conditions, “Travels with Lowell” stands out for its sensitivity and nuance, as Sacks travels the world alongside a photographer with Tourette’s, interviewing others with the condition, including one man who could trace incidents of the syndrome back six generations in his family, yet was not officially diagnosed until age 38. Sacks also recalls being consulted in the case of actor/writer Spalding Gray, who became desperately, compulsively depressed after a brain injury in 2001 and died by suicide three years later. Sacks’s gentle, ruminative voice is a salve when investigating difficult subject matter, but there are plenty of lighter moments as well, as in a brief discussion of a topic dear to his heart—New York City’s many and varied streetlamps. Piercingly insightful and delightfully strange, Sacks’s final collection is a treat for the chronically curious. – Publishers Weekly.
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