music according to sacks ( )

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. ( )

(#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? ( )

As always, Oliver Sacks takes a potentially abstruse topic and makes it not only accessible but fundamental. ( )

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. ( )