Daniel Tammet's "Born on a Blue Day"

This book came up as a reference in "Look Me in the Eye" by John Elder Robison as a worthwhile book to read on Asperger's Syndrome. So I followed up the reference out of curiosity.

What a pleasant surprise! Once I got the book I realized that I'd seen a documentary on this guy, Daniel Tammet, because scenes from his UK documentary "Brainman" came to mind as I read the section of this book where he talked about going to San Diego to Ramachandran's lab where they did a brief study of his techniques for working with numbers and a scene in Salt Lake City where he met Kim Peek, the savant whose story is behind the Hollywood film "Rain Man". The video I saw included bits from his visit to Iceland where he learned the language in a week. This was a separate filming done by a different crew so I must have seen a compilation of video about him.

The book is very interesting. It read as deadpan as it gets. It is very clear that he doesn't have the emotional life that most people have. In his book he discusses the differences as he can see it. The bit about "wanting a friend" and longing to have a "normal" life paralleled John Elder Robison's writings. With Tammet it goes to the extreme of talking about his "conversion to Christianity" in the final chapter of his book. This was a bit much for me.

I loved the section where he talked of memorizing 22,514 digits of the expansion of pi and successfully reciting them in 5 hours and 9 minutes before a set of examiners. He claims to picture "number landscapes". This is somehow related to "chunking" that ordinary people do to memorize large sets of facts.

The book was fascinating throughout. I enjoyed reading about his childhood and his appreciation of how much effort his parents (and siblings) put into accomodating him. I appreciated the story of his first adult adventure, taking a job teaching English in Lithuania. The adventures at the end of his book were each delightful: the finding of his life partner, Neil; the video documentary to the US; the week's trip to Iceland to learn Icelandic; the memorizing of pi as a charity fund raiser for epilepsy. The book is full of lots of interesting details and insights.

A few points about the book:

• I can't relate to his discussions of his memory techniques. I have a bit of sympathy for his description of synesthesia (but I got more out of Richard Cytowic's book The Man Who Tasted Shapes).
  
• I enjoyed his descriptions of Asperger's Syndrome (counting, textures, rhythmic movement, eye contact, sound sensitivity, etc.).
  
• I really enjoyed his discussion of relationships with family and friends.
  
• I didn't at all enjoy the "conversion" to Christianity which struck me as odd and striving a bit too much to meet external expectations. (He's honest enough to say he find church services difficult because of the people and commotion, but on the other hand he cites 1 Corinthians with its eloquent prose about love, faith, and hope but from reading his own words it is clear that he doesn't live this experience so the concept of "conversion" rings hollow, too much like striving to be "normal".)

Here is a video of Daniel Tammet appearing on David Letterman's TV show.

Here is a Discovery channel show on Daniel Tammet.

Here is a Discovery channel show on Kim Peek, the original "Rain Man".

Here is a local TV station in Boston interviewing John Elder Robison about his book Look Me in the Eye.