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Born on a Blue Day
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Born on a Blue Day (2006) (edit title/settings)

A Memoir of Asperger's and an Extraordinary Mind

by Daniel Tammet (Author) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

One of the world's fifty living autistic savants is the first and only to tell his compelling and inspiring life story---and explain how his incredible mind works.

Summary edit see section history

Born on a Blue Day is a journey into one of the most fascinating minds alive today--guided by its owner himself. Daniel Tammet sees numbers as shapes, colors, & textures, & he can perform extraordinary calculations in his head. He can learn to speak new languages fluently, from... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

Born on a Blue Day is a journey into one of the most fascinating minds alive today--guided by its owner himself. Daniel Tammet sees numbers as shapes, colors, & textures, & he can perform extraordinary calculations in his head. He can learn to speak new languages fluently, from scratch, in a week. In 2004, he memorized & recited more that 22,00 digits of pi, setting a record. He has savant syndrome, an extremely rare condition that gives him almost unimaginable mental powers, much like those portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the film Rain Man.
Daniel has a compulsive need for order and routine--he eats the same precise amount of cereal for breakfast every morning & cannot leave the house without counting the numbers of items of clothing he's wearing. When he gets stressed or is unhappy, he closes his eyes and counts. But in 1 crucial way Daniel is not al all like the Rain Man: he is virtually unique among people who have severe autistic disorders in that he is capable of living a fully independent life. He has emerged from the "other side" of autism with the ability to function successfully-- he is even able to explain what is happening inside his head.
Born on a Blue Day is a triumphant and uplifting story, starting from early childhood, when Daniel was incapable of making friends & 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. The world's leading neuroscientists have been studying Daniel's ability to solve complicated math problems in one fell swoop by seeing shapes rather than making step-by-step calculations. Here he explains how he does it, and how he is able to learn new languages so quickly, simply by absorbing their patterns. Fascinating and inspiring, Born on a Blue Day explores what it is like to be special and gives us an insight into what makes us all human--our minds.

People edit see section history

  • Daniel Tammet: The book is about Daniel and written by him. He speaks about his crazy life from his childhood up until now.
  • Neil: Daniel's romantic partner.
  • Kim Peek: A savant and the basis of Dustin Hoffman's character in the movie Rain Man. Daniel met him during the filming of a documentary and they connected.
  • Birute: a friend of Daniel's. She is a middle aged woman who worked as a translator.
  • Steven: Daniel's brother
  • Lee: Daniel's brother. the next oldest in the family.
  • Jennifer Tammet: Daniel's mother
  • Kevin Tammet: Daniel's father.
  • Claire: Daniel's sister, the oldest girl.
  • Paul: Daniel's brother.
  • Maria: Daniel's sister, a twin
  • Natasha: Daniel's sister, a twin.
  • Heidi: Neighbor girl of Finnish descent. Friend of Claire's. Daniel begins to learn Finnish from her books.
  • Mr. Thraves: One of Daniel's early teachers.
  • Anne: Daniel's imaginary friend.
  • Babak: Daniel's first real friend.
  • Anna-Marie: Daniel's sister
  • Shelley: Daniel's sister. The youngest child.
  • Rehan: Daniel's friend in secondary school.
  • Denise: Welsh volunteer in Lithuania at the same time that Daniel was volunteering.
  • Gurcharan: Most experienced volunteer in Lithuania when Daniel arrived.
  • Vytautas: Lithuanian gay man; one of the first gay men that Daniel interacts with. A student.
  • Zygintas: Vytautas's partner, works in a dental practice.
  • Jonas: Daniel's landlord in Lithuania.
  • Audrone: Fellow volunteer who takes Daniel in for Christmas.
  • Jay: Neil's cat.
  • Moomin: An all black cat that Neil and Daniel adopt.
  • Toby: Cameraman for Brainman. Same age as Daniel.
  • Professor Ramachandran: Scientist who studies Daniel's abilities.
  • Shai: Professor's assistant. He and Daniel became friends.
  • Ed: A man on the Professor's research team.
  • Fran Peek: Father of Kim and full time caregiver for him.
  • Sigriour: Nicknamed Sirry. Daniel's tutor for the Icelandic language during the filming of Brainman.
  • David Letterman: Late night TV show host, interviews Daniel after the Brainman documentary.
  • Darold Treffert: World's foremost expert in savant syndromes.
  • G. K. Chesterton: British author whose books influenced Daniel's religious beliefs and were able to answer his questions.
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Quotes edit see section history

  • “I was born on 31 January 1979 – a Wednesday. I know it was a Wednesday, because the date is blue in my mind and Wednesdays are always blue, like the number nine or the sound of loud voices arguing.”
    Daniel Tammet
  • “I know to treat each person I meet with kindness and respect, because I believe that each person is unique and created in God’s image.”
    Daniel Tammet
  • “I just did not seem to fit in anywhere, as though I had been born into the wrong world. The sense of never feeling quite comfortable or secure, of always being somehow apart and separate, weighed heavily on me.”
    Daniel Tammet
  • “Even so, I believe what is truly essential to the success of any relationship is not so much compatibility, but love. When you love someone, virtually anything is possible.”
    Daniel Tammet
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • Professor Snyder believes that autistic thought is not wholly different from ordinary thought, but an extreme form of it. By temporarily
    Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers
  • Research indicates that autistic children who were breast-fed are more responsive, socially adjusted and affectionate than their formula-fed peers.
    Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers
  • Autism, including Asperger’s syndrome, is defined by the presence of impairments affecting social interaction, communication, and imagination (problems with abstract or flexible thought and empathy, for example). Diagnosis is not easy and
    Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers
  • activity — the ability to think contextually and conceptually, for example — TMS,
    Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
  • sleep disorders found among those with epilepsy. Some scientists believe that sleep-related events
    Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
  • Single-mindedness is a defining characteristic, as is a strong drive to analyze detail and identify rules and patterns in systems. Specialized skills involving
    Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
  • love abide these three. But the greatest of these is love.” Everyone is said to have a perfect
    Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
  • There exists a complex relationship between sleep and epilepsy, with a higher incidence of
    Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
  • interference effect of seeing the H shape. In my case, like those of most people on the autistic spectrum, the interference is reversed and I struggle to see the overall letter shape because my brain focuses automatically on the individual details.
    Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
  • in the left temporal lobe, and some researchers suggest that one explanation for savant abilities is left-brain injury leading to right-brain compensation. This is because the skills most commonly seen in savants, including numbers and calculation, are associated with the right hemisphere.
    Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
Show all 14 quotes from this book

Setting & Locations edit see section history

  • Lithuania: Daniel spent time in Lithuania as a volunteer teaching English. During this time he also learned to speak the local language like a native.
  • London: Tammet family lived here while Daniel was growing up.
  • Iceland: Daniel visited Iceland as the final part in a documentary filmed about him. To test his language learning skills, he was given a week to learn the Icelandic language and was interviewed in the language on television.
  • United States: Daniel visited the United States during the filming of a documentary about him. Various scientists interviewed and tested him, and he had the extraordinary experience of meeting Kim Peek, the man whom Dustin Hoffman's character in the movie Rain Man was based on. Daniel later returned to the US to appear on the David Letterman Show.

Organizations edit see section history

First Sentence edit see section history

I was born on January 31, 1979 - a Wednesday, a blue day.

Table of Contents edit see section history

1. Blue Nines and Red Words
2. Early Years
3. Struck by Lightning: Epilepsy
4. School Days
5. Odd One Out
6. Adolescence
7. Ticket to Kaunas
8. Falling in Love
9. The Gift of Tongues
10. A Very Large Slice of Pi
11. Meeting Kim Peek
12. Reykjavik, New York, Home

Glossary edit see section history

  • synesthesia: rare neurological mixing of the senses, which most commonly results in the ability to see alphabetical letters and/or numbers in color.
  • tarakonas: Cockroach
  • Esperanto: A language whose vocabulary is a blend of many other languages and whose grammar is very consistent and logical. The word means "one who hopes". The language was created by Dr. Ludovic Lazarus Zamenhof with the hope that an easy to learn language would aid international understanding
  • esperantigis: Becoming a speaker of Esperanto.
  • Manti: Daniel's personal created language. Named for a Finnish word for pine tree.
  • ENIAC: Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer--an early computer that was used to calculate the value of pi.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Daniel Tammet (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Country: Great Britain
Publication Date: 2006
ISBN: 0340938366
Page Count: 237

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: RC553.A88T36 2007
  • Dewey: 362.196'858820092

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Reading Level: Young Adults

Maybe 8th grade and up. Suitable for adults also

Movie Connections edit see section history

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger's
  • Thinking in Pictures
  • Emergence: Labeled Autistic
  • Developing Talents: Careers for Individuals with Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism

Books That Cite This Book edit see section history

   
  • Moonwalking with Einstein
  • The Last Oracle

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