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Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks
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Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

by Oliver Sacks

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1,240312,655 (3.65)30
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music according to sacks ( )
marianasoffer | Jun 17, 2009 |  
Could not get through it. Superficial case study after case study---some just a sentence or two long. Over and over. But most of the case studies add nothing to the story. There are few conclusions or insights. ( )
breic2 | Jun 16, 2009 |  
(#22 in the 2009 Book Challenge)

This was more alarming than I thought it would be. As a profoundly tone deaf person, sometimes I like reading things about music because it all seems so science fictiony to me. But when Oliver Sacks talks about it ... it's too weird having him describe ME in terms of a pathology. As we can all expect, the book's essay chapters deal with various ways that music issues -- usually either great musical talent or great musical defect -- intersect with the things we know about the workings of the human brain.
Grade: B
Recommended: I think more musical people might enjoy this, but overall, I don't think it's quite as successful as some of his other books, maybe because having perfect pitch doesn't seem as intriguing as mistaking your wife for a hat? ( )
delphica | Jun 10, 2009 |  
As always, Oliver Sacks takes a potentially abstruse topic and makes it not only accessible but fundamental. ( )
Katya0133 | May 13, 2009 |  
The remarkably knowledgeable neurologist can present no grand theory of the link between the brain and music and the book is much of one case after another. However, some of the cases are utterly fascinating and Sacks has persuasive accounts for music therapy. ( )
fnielsen | Apr 12, 2009 |  
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For Orrin Devinsky, Ralph Siegel, and Connie Tomaino
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What an odd thing it is to see an entire species—billions of people—playing with, listening to, meaningless tonal patterns, occupied and preoccupied for much of their time by what they call "music." (Preface)
Tony Cicoria was forty-two, very fit and robust, a former college football player who had become a well-regarded orthopedic surgeon in a small city in upstate New York.
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Amazon.com (ISBN 0676979785, Hardcover)

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

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:12 -0400)

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