Product Description

The best-selling author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks is well know as an explorer of the human mind—a neurologist with a gift for complex, insightful portrayals of people and their conditions. However, he is also a card-carrying member of the American Fern Society, and since childhood has been fascinated by these primitive plants and their ability to survive and adapt in many climates.

Oaxaca Journal is Sacks's spellbinding account of his trip with a group of fellow fern enthusiasts to the beautiful, history-steeped province of Oaxaca, Mexico. Bringing together Sacks's passion for natural history and the richness of human culture with his sharp eye for detail, Oaxaca Journal is a captivating evocation of a place, its plants, its people, and its myriad wonders.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #96653 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-04
• Released on: 2005-10-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

From Booklist
Sacks is--besides a neurologist and a splendid stylist with a shelf of marvelous books to his credit, most recently Uncle Tungsten [BKL S 1 01]--a ferner. That is to say, not that he is an Englishman living in New York, but that he is an amateur pteridologist, one whose hobby is appreciating the ancient class of plants called ferns (and "the so-called fern allies"--clubmosses, horsetails, spike mosses, and whisk ferns--"my own preference," he says). In 1999, that avocation led him to spend 10 days in Oaxaca, Mexico, with other members of the American Fern Society, to whose greater pteridological erudition he modestly defers. He kept a diary, the basis for this book. Fortunately for most readers, he doesn't just describe the rare fern species he gets to see. He notes the exotic birds that two of his companions find as thrilling as the ferns; he admits, however, that he never saw any avians smaller than hawks and vultures, for he hasn't developed a birder's eyes. He lovingly relays what the group's excellent guide imparted of Oaxaca's history, its indigenes, the Zapotecs, and their ancient culture; he rhapsodizes over ruins and the technological and intellectual powers they bespeak; and he admires the people, the many exotic foods, the vistas, and the age-old industries of the towns he visits--all of this while his fellow travelers mostly keep on ferning. He says he wants to go back. Take us along, Dr. Sacks--please! Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

The Providence Journal, 3/31/02
"Oaxaca Journal" whipped up my appetite for a visit to Mexico, as the best travel writing does.

The New York Times, 3/13/02
Sacks's boundless curiosity is always a reward.

Customer Reviews

Take a Trip with Oliver Sacks
Sometime during the writing of his well regarded book "Uncle Tungsten", Neurologist Oliver Sacks took a 12 day trip to state of Oaxaca (pronounced wah-HOCK-ah) in southern Mexico ostesibly for the purpose of observing and cataloging ferns with members of the American Fern Society- to which he belongs. Oaxaca Journal is the Author's first person account of the delighful little adventure that resulted.

Because of the Author's boundless curiosity about pretty much everything, the trip becomes more than just a fern collecting odyssey. To the searching eye of Sacks, a simple midmorning sitting alone at a cafe table in a town square, becomes a rumination on human tolerance for sun and shadow. A visit to the Ancient Meso-American city of Monte Alban becomes an excuse to probe into the curious history of rubber- which the Zapotec people used to make their heavy sport balls for their own unique form of basketball. Casually encountered botanical names are savored for their historical baggage and contribution to language and culture. And each new plant Sacks and his travelling companions encounter sparks a conversation which could end up touching on just about any realm of human experience.

Sacks' travelling companions are a particular delight; intelligent, well read, boundlessly enthusiastic, they are the sort of people one dreams of having along on trips to casually recount tidbits of history, science, and cuture to enrich the experience. Anyone belonging to a club with a scientific or academic bent, will recognize the combination of passion and quirkiness in the author's new friends.

Fans of the casual, digression laden, style James Burke's "Connections" books or of the popular recent books on single subjects, such as Mark Pendergrast's "Uncommon Grounds" and Mark Kurlansky's "Salt", will probably enjoy Oaxaca Journal. These books are typically pretexts for digressions into juicy and fascinating anecdotes from the nooks and crannies of human history and knowledge.

In a way, the author's vivid account of his trip reads like a book length "National Geographic" article. There's no real agenda or underlying theme. The confluence of experiences that the trip allows to happen is point. In this sense, like the best travel writers, Sacks teaches his reader a way of traveling- that is, a way of searching and savoring our fascinating world.

Oaxaca Journal is a pithy 162 pages- with a generous amount of white space included. I would have liked to have seen more text- but I suppose that that would not fit in with the brief nature of the trip in which there was enough experience to tanatalize, but not delve deeply. The entire work could be savored during a long airport layover on the way to an exotic travel destination- which I think would provide the perfect lesson for how to proceed once arrived.

Oddly Satisfying
What an odd little book. Just as he was finishing writing the brilliant UNCLE TUNGSTEN professor of nuerology Oliver Sachs joins an eleven day journey to Oaxaca with a band of botantists the putative purpose of which is to study ferns. Now Oliver likes ferns; he is a member of the American Fern Society and appreciates the antiquity and remarkable adaptability of ferns as much as the average guy (ok--the average, brilliant botanist). The book is replete with charming drawings of ferns and lots of Latin names and fernish descriptions. But it isn't really about ferns.

It is also a quite wonderful description of this special section of southern Mexico. As well as describing the tremendous variety of plant life found in this Mexican state he also is stunned by the variety of food. One restaurant has well over 100 dishes none the same and few immediately recognizable to his North American eye. Sachs tosses in a good deal of history--of the ancient Aztecs, Toltecs, Zapotecs and Mayans as well as Cortez and the conquering Spaniards. He also passes on a few pointed comments about the church and the modern disaster that is Mexican government. He is intrigued by Oaxaca and thinks about the necessity of returning. But this book isn't really about Oaxaca or Mexico herself.

The thirty plus botantists on this tour are an soortment of gays, lesbians, heterosexuals--all in couples save Sachs. He remarks that he has always been a loner--never really part of a couple. One night after drinking a lot of mescal they all ascend a mountaintop to observe a lunar ecliipse. Sachs enjoys the joking and camaraderie immensely, but as the eclipse approaches totality he goes off by himself to best appreciate the event. Almost through the trip he finds himself feeling oddly. After much reflection he decides that he must be feeling joy--because of the adventure, the scientific richness of all he sees, the new experience of Mexico; and, to some degree, because he feels part of a group. And that, I think, is the heart of this book. A brilliant but lonesome man finds sustenance and joy in the company of his peers. An odd, but absolutely charming, little book.

Wonderful excursion into the field and into history!
I finished reading this in 2 days. I couldn't put it down - wanted to keep reading so that I could turn each corner with the author and other members of this excursion and see what fern, bird, or historical artifact would be observed next. I loved the extra background history about foods, artifacts, architecture, etc. The book truly took me right along with the group on their fern-hunting trip into old Mexico.

Thanks for taking me along as a stow-away. I can't wait to share this book with my reading group.