If you’ve seen Rain Man, you’re familiar with the extremely rare Savant Syndrome, which affects a small portion of those with Asperger’s, on the autistic spectrum.  Daniel Tammet is the real deal.  In this memoir, he describes what was going through his mind as a child while he struggled with the anxiety of social interaction.  He also describes how he sees numbers and words as shapes and colors, which contributes to his astounding mathmatical, language, and memorization abilities.

Tammet is able to communicate his thoughts quite clearly and this insight into his obscure mind is more than we have gleaned from just about anyone with even a similar condition.  Because of his condition, the writing comes off as robotic.  At times this is endearing and almost humorous, but can also be a bit monotonous.  I wish there had been a bit more detail about Tammet’s unique abilities, but I still appreciated even just learning about the day to day from someone who suffers from a condition that typically makes it difficult to articulate even that.