Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition
by Oliver Sacks

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition
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Book Summary Information

Author: Oliver Sacks
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-09-23
ISBN: 1400033535
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: Vintage
Product features:

Book Reviews of Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition

Book Review: Musicophilia tickled my brain
Summary: 5 Stars

This book is good for music lovers, and even those, thankfully few, music-haters among us. While Oliver Sacks doesn't tell us why music is so universally loved by the human species, he does tell the myriad ways in which the human brain switches on or switches off the love.
From his many case studies over the decades, as well as his own personal experiences, the reader learns how people internalize music, recalling it in diverse ways. Some, like Sacks himself, can replay complete concertos in their heads, and many people dream music, and some even compose music completely internally. The rest of us play music on iPods, go to concerts, hum tunes to ourselves, and make music of various sorts. At the end of the book, having learned what Sacks means by "Musicophilia", I was left bewildered at how music has taken over our lives.

Summary of Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition

Revised and Expanded

With the same trademark compassion and erudition he brought to The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks explores the place music occupies in the brain and how it affects the human condition. In Musicophilia, he shows us a variety of what he calls "musical misalignments." Among them: a man struck by lightning who suddenly desires to become a pianist at the age of forty-two; an entire group of children with Williams syndrome, who are hypermusical from birth; people with "amusia," to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and pans; and a man whose memory spans only seven seconds-for everything but music.

Illuminating, inspiring, and utterly unforgettable, Musicophilia is Oliver Sacks' latest masterpiece.
Amazon Best of the Month, December 2007: Legendary R&B icon Ray Charles claimed that he was "born with music inside me," and neurologist Oliver Sacks believes Ray may have been right. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain examines the extreme effects of music on the human brain and how lives can be utterly transformed by the simplest of harmonies. With clinical studies covering the tragic (individuals afflicted by an inability to connect with any melody) and triumphant (Alzheimer's patients who find order and comfort through music), Sacks provides an erudite look at the notion that humans are truly a "musical species." --Dave Callanan

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