One of my favorite authors, Oliver Sachs, has just come out with a new book, Musicophilia. Even though I have not yet read the book, it sounds so interesting that I wanted to make people aware of it.

This book promises to examine how the brain processes music. I have read several books by Sachs, who is a neurologist specializing in brain processes. They have all been excellent. His case studies give dignity to the people whose lives he describes, and open up fascinating facets of human behavior for study.

Here is a short review of the book. And Sachs' video clips (scroll down to get them) really pique my interest.

I have this on my Amazon wishlist. it looks great!

Thanks Penny, for bringing this in. I only read , and quite a while ago 'The Man who mistook his wife for a hat'. I liked the way he combined observing his patience with the presentation of all kinds of details everyone in some way can relate to.
Music, the multitude of forms it has taken, has always been my daily companion. This one looks interesting; worth to give it a try. I'll do.

Oh, cool, Penny--thanks! It sounds fascinating!

"Oliver Wolf Sacks (born July 9, 1933, London), is a United States-based British neurologist, who has written popular books about his patients; the most famous of which is Awakenings, which was adapted into a film starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro."

I believe he was featured on NPR's Talk of the Nation, just last week.

Exactly 3 month since Pennyless put this post in. After reading: (no revieuw)

Musicophilia, Tales of Music and the Brain

Title and subtitle kept me in pleasant anticipation, but the reality of the book was a bit of a surprise.
It's about how brain-defects and injuries can affect perception of music. And influence any manifestation of musicality.
Very interesting except for some parts where too many repetitions tend to make it tedious. Interesting, but scary for all that can go wrong due to an illness, an accident or stroke.
I won't name the weird symptoms and syndromes or spectacular
examples of the effects on the brain-music connection.
Sudden Musicophilia is one of them and this is giving the title a double meaning.

The writer ' flutters' from casehistory to casehistory, makes jumps through time, refers to previous books and works of collegues and also, fortunately gives breaks by quotations from famous bearers of science and culture about music.

From Darwin, autobiography:
"In one respect my mind had changed during the last twenty or thirty years.... Formerly pictures gave me considerable and music very intense delight. But now...I have almost lost my taste for pictures and music...My mind seems to have become a machine for grinding general laws out of a large collection of fact...The loss of these tastes, this curious and lamentable loss of the lighter aesthetic tastes, is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature".

Nabokov in, Speak, Memory:
"Music, I regret to say, affects me merely as an arbitrary succession of more or less irritaing sounds.... The concert piano and all wind instruments bore me in small doses and flay me in larger ones".
There are quotes from famous musicians about dreams and music, too long too reproduce here.

Musicophila is not a straight line book. It felt like a hip hop trip through weird phenomena from the world of neurology; brain<->music.

Whatever one may think of Oliver Sacks he shows to be a man who loves people, music and his work. I'm glad I read it.

Cheers Penny , if you pass by.

I had forgotten about this thread. I finished the book a while back. I didn't really enjoy it. some interesting concepts, but really dry writing (not wry), and I guess I expected him to draw some conclusions or at least speculate a bit. he is a scientist, after all.

now I'm in the middle of This Is Your Brain On Music by Daniel Levitin, and I'm finding it somewhat boring, as well.

maybe it's just me, but these are topics I am really interested in, and I'm just not getting it from these books.

I admire your endurence. I read the short resume of the book you mention. I'll just go back to enjoying music in all its endless shapes and styles. (not too many brainbooks)