A journey into one of the most fascinating minds alive today--guided by its owner. Daniel Tammet sees numbers as shapes, colors, and textures, and he can perform extraordinary calculations in his head. He can learn new languages from scratch, in a week. He has savant syndrome, a rare condition that gives him almost unimaginable mental powers. But in one crucial way Daniel is not at all like the Rain Man: he is virtually unique among autistic people in that he is capable of living an independent life. He is even able to explain what is happening inside his head. Starting from early childhood, when he was incapable of making friends and prone to tantrums, to young adulthood, when he learned how to control himself and to live independently, fell in love, experienced a religious conversion to Christianity, and most recently, emerged as a celebrity.--From publisher description.
An interesting and engaging story of a man with Aspergers, his life experience and what he is doing with his life. I found it both interesting and a touch exasperating and can imagine that he is a hard person to life with or work with. The focus is continusously on him and you can see how others could be sidelined by him.
He describes how school was torture for him because he really didn't fit in, being gay didn't help either, and where he didn't understand the social niceties of the world.
It does lag occasionally, particularly when he gets bogged down in mathematical abstracts but otherwise it is quite interesting and gave me an insight to how some people think.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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27 September, 2008:
Finished reading
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27 September, 2008:
Reviewed