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Title: Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
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Manufacturer: Knopf
List Price: $26.00
Our Price: $13.26
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| Customer Reviews: |
| Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Knopf another excellent book by Sacks | I have always liked Oliver Sacks' writing. His mix of clinical
observation, erudite philosphical musings, combined with the
deep empathy for the patients he describes is unique. However,
this book is quite different from his previous offerings since he
chooses a single underlying theme. It would appear that the
cases discussed and conclusions drawn would be more limited
than the far ranging examples in his previous books.
Yet, if anything, the opposite is true. He delves deeply into
this, some would say, inessential human endeavor, and shows
how intricately it is interwoven with everything else that makes
us human. In doing so he illustrates, perhaps better than in
any of his previous works, how complex our minds truly are.
The first story in the book, which appeared in the New Yorker
several months before publication, really sold me on the book.
I was somewhat disappointed with the next few pieces, which
were a bit of a letdown. However, the book soon picks up, and
the second half is as good as anything he has written before.
He does revisit several of his earlier case studies, however he
casts them in a new light.
Read the first story on the New Yorker website. If you like it,
you will enjoy the book | | Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Knopf Musicophilia | | This book is written from the perspective of Oliver Sacks, a psychologist for many decades. He writes of the the multitudinous experiences of people with musical aspects that he has come across, both in his practise, and in people who have made contact with him. It is riveting reading for me as a musician with some minor neurological dysfunction at times as well as perfect pitch, to hear of many stories of people who have similar status, and what Sacks has been able to discover. | | Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Knopf Musicophilia...thoughts from a Sacks fan...... | | I just received today. This is the kind of book you can start to read anywhere and be engrossed. I completely admit that some of is too clinical and somewhat difficult to understand, however, most of it is absolutely fasinating. I highly recommend this if you have any interest at all in music and the brain. I always appreciate the ancedotes and Sack's does not scrimp. Highly recommended. | | Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Knopf Oliver Sacks Does It Again | At first this was a bit more clinical than I expected, then I warmed up to it. I was interested as a musician and someone interested also in cognitive processes. I had hoped to gain insight into some of the functioning of my husband's musical mind post-coma, but I also gained insight into my own musical mind post-concussion.... as in, maybe it had something to do with my taking up music again after 20 years of silence. So for the first time I had a bit of gratitude for the experience.
Lee & I both did a significant amount of self-rehabilitation; it would be nice if more professionals took heed of music's role in healing the brain. | | Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Knopf Unfortunately, more of the same. | | I write as an admirer of Sacks's earlier books: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Uncle Tungsten, An Anthropologist on Mars, and Awakenings. This book, I'm sorry to say, wasted my time. We get the "case study" approach, familiar from the earlier books. What I missed is either any overarching theme or resolution. Chapter after chapter seemed little more than "this abnormality or statistical oddity has a correspondence somewhere in the brain." Well, duh-uh. Perhaps we so little about the mind that no such theme or resolution or even narrative arc was possible. Yet I never got that feeling from Sacks before. I did like the chapter on Clive Wearing, because for once I saw a living portrait. On the other hand, I believe I had read that chapter, or an earlier version of it, in the New Yorker. As far as I'm concerned, this is Sacks on automatic. | | Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Knopf Product Description | 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. | | Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Knopf Amazon.com | | 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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