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Musicophilia | 
| Author: Oliver Sacks
Publisher: Knopf
Category: EBooks
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $9.99
You Save: $4.96 (33%)
Rating:  91 reviews
Sales Rank: 125
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Dewey Decimal Number: 781.11
ASIN: B000W939JI
Publication Date: October 16, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
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
Product Description
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.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 86 more reviews...
 Man, the musical animal December 4, 2008
Sacks does it again, merging clinical precision with insight and real affection for his patients. This time, he explores the biological foundations of music as a human experience. It turns out that music runs deep in the human brain and mind, as it does in possibly no other species. In his medical practice, Sacks has seen how music can heal, as in some Parkison's and psychiatric patients, or even harm, in rare cases where its rhythms can trigger seizures. It can reach in to patients blocked from normal communication, and it can help people reach out through stuttering or stroke-damaged failures of language. In some Tourette's patients, it can both drive creativity, and be used to channel the illness's effects away from harmful kinds of expression. It casts new light on Plato's draconian control over music in his idealized Republic - it really does have deep effect on the citizens' minds.
Since musical expression seems so deeply ingrained in the human nervous system, it seems surprising that people differ so much in how the experience it. Oddly, enjoyment and basic neurological faculties for music don't always go together. I'm one who "lack[s] some of the perceptual or cognitive abilities to appreciate music but nonetheless enjoy it hugely." I'm about as unmusical as anyone around, but usually have something playing - at least in my imagination. Others, even with fine senses of pitch or the formal nuances of music, might be quite indifferent. I found it helpful to see all the different parts of the musical sense, and to see how they fit together.
This book gives real insight into one of the most basic of human faculties. It's a study that has only recently claimed a place of its own in the scientific literature, possibly because it is so abstract and subjective. As a result, nearly everything that Sacks presents comes across as fresh knowledge. And, since it discusses parts of human nature that have rarely been discussed, it helped me to see my place in the range of human experience. My lack of musical ability has been an embarrassment, sometimes a painful one. I can, and do, enjoy it anyway, and my enjoyment is as real as anyone's.
-- wiredweird
Musicophillia December 2, 2008
Arrived quickly and in perfect condition.
Great read for anyone interested in the psychology of music, specifically music therapists.
 If you've read Sacks and loved it, you'll be disappointed... November 28, 2008
Perhaps the "revised and Expanded Edition" has overcome the original failings of repetition and failure to hold together. This book felt link a compendium of short articles.
 Needs editing November 25, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
My wife thoughtfully purchased this book for me. I had read about it and was very excited to dive right in. Unfortunately I ended up really having to convince myself to finish it, as it became redundant fairly quickly. Sacks presents (too) many case studies regarding music and the brain, but the presentation feels random and somewhat unfocused. Had his editor suggested grouping the studies by themes or urged Sacks to provide more neurological background information it perhaps would have better kept my attention. It felt as if the reader had to do a lot of work to pull together some of the concepts.
As for the perceived redundancy, I kept waiting for the conclusion or wrap-up that would provide the overarching theme to all the seemingly disconnected patient stories, but to no avail. It almost felt as if the stories were starting to repeat themselves but with different patient names. The length too felt far too long, almost as if everything presented in the first half were just recycled for the second. Additionally, the writing style is very informal and easy to digest, which is not necessarily a positive. The book begins to feel as if the author were afraid to intelligently, academically, and thoroughly dissect the subject matter for fear of alienating too many readers. The result is a glossy feeling, like you're reading the U.S.A. Today version of something that could have really offered some insightful perspectives.
Promising topic, but presented without much organization, background information, or conclusion. I'm surprised that an editor would allow such breadth to be published without any true depth.
An Insightful Book November 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Music hath qualities to charm the savage breast."
Congreve's familiar line reiterates the legend of Orpheus who used music to control nature and living creatures.
Whether true or not is a matter of conjecture. But there is a rising body of evidence music stimulates intellect and eases the learning process. And Oliver Sacks, the famed neurologist, enforces that argument in his new book, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. He also stresses the healing power of music. Sacks calls the ability to appreciate music a defining quality of our humanity.
Sacks' love of music and his empathy and compassion for people whose lives have been transformed in some manner of other by music shine through his words, offering insight into a myriad of worlds most of us wouldn't have imagined. He reveals that music is so integral to our being we search it out even in the midst of the most disturbing trauma.
In the waning days of her existence my mother suffered musical hallucinations. I wish I had read Dr. Sacks then so I might better have understood what she was going through.
Sacks explains how we tend to take music for granted, to trivialize it in our daily lives, and yet it can be the most restorative factor in our health and life. It reminds me some religions teach that it is music which keeps the world in flux.
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