Fascinating anecdotes written by an eminent neurologist in an accessible and personal style about the amazing and unexpected ways that music works on people.

There's the man who got struck by lightning, and then a few weeks afterwards suddenly found that the creation of new music was flowing through his mind, "like turning a radio on". There are musical hallucinations; interesting stories about music and synesthesia (when one hears the key of D for instance, one sees a colour - plainly, not just in imagination); about how people trapped in parkinsonian spasms suddenly move freely and easily to music; about absolute pitch, the ability to hear a note and know exactly what it is, as plainly as we see green and know that it is green. Stuff like that, told with a human warmth and interest in the people being discussed.

I came away from the book with the sense that music is more than we think it is - far more than a series of sounds. It's something that different people understand on such different levels (regardless of education and training), and something of extraordinary power. It's as if music is already out there, existing on its own without human intervention, and it's only our own varying perception that enables us to access or understand it.

I have been a fan of Oliver Sacks for many years. His books are extremely well written, although they can be a little esoteric at times. His insights into the neurological aspects of mental deficits via injury, illness, or other circumstances really bring to light the reality of how incredible the human brain is. In Musicophilia, we learn how music really is the universal language and how our brain can use it in spite of debillitations such as Parkinson's. He introduces us to the phenomenom of synthesia, the remarkable story of Clive Wearing, and other instances of the incredible plasticity of the mind. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the relationship between music and the brain - I promise you'll find it fascinating. ( )

Fascinating for anyone interested in the brain and in music, particularly classical music. This book is like having a very smart friend sit down and tell you a wonderful story. Perhaps while having a couple of drinks. A bit uneven - some parts are more interesting than others, but highly memorable and educational. ( )

While it took me a bit to get through this book, I liked it. The descriptions of the different ways in which music plays a part in the lives of the many people discussed in this book was very interesting and enlightening. I also highly recommend the NOVA episode that was a companion piece to this book called "Musical Minds". ( )

Sachs is a very accessible writer, which was somewhat surprising to me since all I knew about him was that his book was about the brain. He presents a long chain of case studies grouped into categories, which reads pretty much like a magazine feature. I expected that a neuroscientist would fill the pages with arguments for a particular theory about this or that phenomena, but I was wrong. I suppose the overriding thesis is that the brain is a very complicated organ, and variation in our brains result in variation in our perception of music. The surprising part to me was that, except for the occasional mention of a certain region of the brain known for certain kinds of functions, scientists don't know much of anything with any certainty about how or why the brain works. If it weren't for the very coarse technical measurements he cites and the fancy names for psychiatric conditions, the book could have been written in another century. Nonetheless, it was an interesting read about the varieties of musical experience. ( )