Mark Twain is considered by many to be one of the most entertaining men ever to have convulsed an audience. His lectures were artfully crafted and then presented as if they were extemporaneous. The editor has picked 82 of Twain`s finest and least known lectures, toasts, and other platform presentations. Today`s reader with a taste for dry wit and the precise word that makes the difference between ”the lightning and the lightning bug” can derive as much joy from them as Twain`s listeners did a century ago.
A LEG TO STAND ON
BY OLIVER SACKS. SUMMIT, $14.95
This is an intimate journal about the experience and nature of illness. It is an unusual tale in that the physician is the patient–the author himself. Dr. Oliver Sacks is a professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, and he tells about a climbing accident in Norway in which he hurt his leg. He anticipated a routine recovery, but found he had no sensation at all in his limb after his operation and that his leg was alien to him. The book illuminates the experience of patienthood as Dr. Sacks recounts his journey to recovery.
