During his youth he was a keen amateur chemist, as recalled in his memoir Uncle Tungsten.

With "Uncle Tungsten," Sacks has reignited the fire, so the rest of us can read by its glow.

Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood By Oliver Sacks.

Q. In some ways, "Uncle Tungsten" seems very different from your other books.

It brought to mind my Uncle Tungsten, with his wing collar and his tungsten-blackened hands.

My Uncle Tungsten lived until he was 87, and one of the last things I mentioned to him was about some of the rare earth magnets.

Sacks the adolescent chemist was introduced in his recent book, "Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood."

Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood is a memoir by Oliver Sacks about his childhood published in 2001.

Uncle Tungsten was fascinated with tungsten and believed it was the metal of the future.

It is, however, mentioned in the book Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood by Oliver Sacks.