In an opinion piece in yesterday’s New York Times titled simply, “My Own Life,” author Oliver Sacks announces that he has terminal cancer.

True to the life-affirming spirit he has always demonstrated, he looks at this as an opportunity, he says, “It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me” and, “I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight.”

He also notes that he has completed an autobiography that will be published in late April On the Move: A Life, (RH/Knopf; RH Audio, 4/28/15), which features a photo on the cover of Sachs as a young man. Few libraries have ordered it yet.

The story brought an outpouring of emotions on Twitter. Both the upcoming book and Sack’s classic, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, (S&S/Summit, 1985; now available from S&S/Touchstone) are rising on Amazon’s sales rankings.

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