Before his death in 2015 Oliver Sacks left instructions for the publication of these essays as a collection. They range from Darwin’s botanical observations to false memories, plagiarism to our awareness of time, and are all written with Sacks’ signature enthusiasm for the world of science. As was his habit, Sacks often provides a personal context to his subject and nearly always an historical one. His had a gift of making the complex both comprehensible and fascinating and his breadth of knowledge is truly on show in The River of Consciousness.