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Covers every last aspect of how music can effect the body. I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in neurology as well as anyone who is a very passionate music lover.
I am sure for others who have had experiences similar to those included in this book will find great relief in knowing that there are others who have experienced the same thing. Engaging stories about people with William's syndrome, Alzheimers, autism, synesthesia, amusia, etc., oftentimes in their own words, provide really unique insight into how we process and experience music and just how multi-faceted these processes and experiences really are. Musicophilia offers an inside look into the lives of people who experience music in atypical ways, from those who have heightened abilities and sensitivities to music to those with a partial or total lack of musical receptivity. I definitely won't be taking my own musicality and musical experiences for granted anytime soon. I give this book four stars instead of five only because the book is nearly 400 pages long, which makes it feel a bit like a marathon towards the end. But the various stories don't feel repetitive; on the contrary, they provide a very good overview of the varieties of musical experience. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in music. A very accessible and engaging read.
No questions are asked and hence no major answers are provided to anything. The book is just a collection of short documented field observations. The author does not provide any significant or thought provoking insights stemming from his experience. It is just psychology as curiosity and oddities of the human species. The author may be a compassionate therapist but not a deep thinking intellectual.
Sacks' style of writing is both precise and descriptive, and he has the power of bringing to life, through emotional discourse, each subject he discusses analytically. If you've enjoyed the PBS DVD "Musical Minds," you'll enjoy even more an extension and development of those stories in Sacks' expanded version of the hardback MUSICOPHILIA. This text contains more than 29 stories regarding various psychological and musical disorders. You cannot help but come away from the book knowing more about the tremendous healing and regenerative power of music in the lives of people challenged by physical and emotional disabilities. Heady and hearty reading.
Musicophilia suggests a scientific revelation of the benefits of loving music--neurogenesis, neural synchrony, increased intelligence, joy and happiness--but what we get is a dry, monotone recitation of one pathology after another involving music, not musical at all.
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