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Music can move us to the heights or depths of emotion. It can persuade us to buy something, or remind us of our first date. It can lift us out of depression when nothing else can. It can get us dancing to its beat. But the power of music goes much, much further. Indeed, music occupies more areas of our brain than language does—humans are a musical species.

Oliver Sacks’s compassionate, compelling tales of people struggling to adapt to different neurological conditions have fundamentally changed the way we think of our own brains, and of the human experience. In Musicophilia, he examines the powers of music through the individual experiences of patients, musicians, and everyday people—from a man who is struck by lightning and suddenly inspired to become a pianist at the age of forty-two, to an entire group of children with Williams syndrome, who are hypermusical from birth; from people with “amusia,” to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and pans, to a man whose memory spans only seven seconds—for everything but music.

Our exquisite sensitivity to music can sometimes go wrong: Sacks explores how catchy tunes can subject us to hours of mental replay, and how a surprising number of people acquire nonstop musical hallucinations that assault them night and day. Yet far more frequently, music goes right: Sacks describes how music can animate people with Parkinson’s disease who cannot otherwise move, give words to stroke patients who cannot otherwise speak, and calm and organize people whose memories are ravaged by Alzheimer’s or amnesia.

Music is irresistible, haunting, and unforgettable, and in Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks tells us why.

Average Customer Rating:

Musicophillia	Customer Rating:
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...	Customer Rating:
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

Customer Rating:

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

Customer Rating:

"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.

understanding brain musicality	Customer Rating:
Mr. Stack has made an important contribution to the fascinating world of brain working , it helps to understand the enormous possibilities inside us