Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks
Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks
9 Rating(s)
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Musicophilia
Tales of Music and the Brain

Author: Oliver Sacks

Narrator: John Lee

Unabridged: 11 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/16/2007

Synopsis

Music can move us to the heights or depths of emotion. It can persuade us to buy something, or remind us of our first date. It can lift us out of depression when nothing else can. It can get us dancing to its beat. But the power of music goes much, much further. Indeed, music occupies more areas of our brain than language does–humans are a musical species.

Oliver Sacks’s compassionate, compelling tales of people struggling to adapt to different neurological conditions have fundamentally changed the way we think of our own brains, and of the human experience. In MUSICOPHILIA, he examines the powers of music through the individual experiences of patients, musicians, and everyday people. He explores how catchy tunes can subject us to hours of mental replay, and how a surprising number of people acquire nonstop musical hallucinations that assault them night and day. Yet far more frequently, music goes right: Sacks describes how music can animate people with Parkinson’s disease who cannot otherwise move, give words to stroke patients who cannot otherwise speak, and calm and organize people whose memories are ravaged by Alzheimer’s or amnesia.

Music is irresistible, haunting, and unforgettable, and in MUSICOPHILIA, Oliver Sacks tells us why.

About The Author

Oliver Sacks was born in 1933 in London and was educated at Queen's College, Oxford. He completed his medical training at San Francisco's Mount Zion Hospital and at UCLA before moving to New York. Familiar to the readers of The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, Dr. Sacks spent more than fifty years working as a neurologist and wrote many books, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia, and Hallucinations, about the strange neurological predicaments and conditions of his patients. The New York Times referred to him as "the poet laureate of medicine," and over the years he received many awards, including honors from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal College of Physicians. His memoir On the Move was published shortly before his death in August 2015.JOHN LEE's highly innovative work in the fields of emotional intelligence, anger management, and emotional regression has made him an in-demand consultant, teacher, trainer, coach, and speaker. His contributions in the fields of recovery, relationships, men’s issues, spirituality, parenting, and creativity have put him in the national spotlight for over 20 years. Lee has been featured on Oprah, 20/20, Barbara Walters’ The View, CNN, PBS, and NPR. He has been interviewed by Newsweek, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and dozens of other national magazines and radio talk shows.For over 25 years, Lee has conducted private and group sessions on a variety of issues working with men, women, couples, and families. He lectures, gives workshops and trainings in cities all over the world, delivering sensitive, yet sophisticated material to audiences in a humorous and simple way everyone can understand. His lectures have been branded as “hilariously entertaining, deeply compassionate, yet filled with ‘tell it like it is!’”Lee served as a professor at the University of Texas and at the University of Alabama before becoming a writer, bestselling author, life coach, and personal consultant. He currently resides on breathtaking Lookout Mountain in Mentone, Alabama with his three happy dogs.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Glenn on November 28, 2021

Have you ever experienced an “ear worm” – i.e., a melody “stuck” in your head? Have you ever found yourself humming or whistling a tune for no reason, then thought back to the lyrics or theme of that song and realized it had something to do with what’s on your mind? Have you ever tried to remember w......more

Goodreads review by Sarah on January 10, 2008

Sacks is, for me, a perfect meeting of a science writer and a writer of creative non-fiction. He has an equal interest in telling an affecting, human story and with exploring how (and why) the brain works. While lots of science writing is dry and objective (as it should be) and while mainstream feat......more

Goodreads review by Keith on March 02, 2009

I am a huge sucker for pop science about human consciousness. Sacks, unfortunately, has the habit of boring me with far too many anecdotes which he fails to link in any progression of Greater Understanding.......more

Goodreads review by fourtriplezed on April 03, 2020

Music response Music that triggers some kind of response I have what you want, I have what you need So sang the Chemical Brothers with what was the entire vocal and lyric content of their song Music: Response. With those three lines sang over and over again to a heavy dance laden beat they make a good......more

Goodreads review by Veronika on December 27, 2020

Od detstva bola pre mňa hudba tá najnepochopiteľnejšia vec na svete. Keď mi na škole matikárka povedala, Veronika nájdi hodnotu prostredného člena binomického rozvoja výrazu odmocnina z x plus jedna lomené x a to celé na šiestu, tak s prstom v nose. Keď sa slovenčinárka spýtala, kto chce prísť k tabul......more

Quotes

“Dr. Sacks writes not just as a doctor and a scientist but also as a humanist with a philosophical and literary bent. . . [his] book not only contributes to our understanding of the elusive magic of music but also illuminates the strange workings, and misfirings, of the human mind.”
–Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“Oliver Sacks turns his formidable attention to music and the brain . . . He doesn’t stint on the science . . . but the underlying authority of Musicophilia lies in the warmth and easy command of the author’s voice.”
–Mark Coleman, Los Angeles Times
“His work is luminous, original, and indispensable . . . Musicophilia is a Chopin mazurka recital of a book, fast, inventive and weirdly beautiful . . . Yet what is most awe-inspiring is his observational empathy.”
–American Scholar

“Curious, cultured, caring, in his person Sacks justifies the medical profession and, one is tempted to say, the human race . . . Sacks is, in short, the ideal exponent of the view that responsiveness to music is intrinsic to our makeup. He is also the ideal guide to the territory he covers. Musicophilia allows readers to join Sacks where he is most alive, amid melodies and with his patients.”
–Peter D. Kramer, The Washington Post
“Readers will be grateful that Sacks . . . is happy to revel in phenomena that he cannot yet explain.”
–The New York Times Book Review

“The persuasive essays about composers, patients, savants, and ordinary people . . . offer captivating variations on the central premise that human beings are ‘exquisitely tuned’ to the illuminating yet ultimately mysterious powers of music.”
–Elle

“With the exception of Lewis Thomas, no physician has ever written better about his trade.”
–Salon

“A gifted writer and a neurologist, Sacks spins one fascinating tale after another to show what happens when music and the brain mix it up.”
–Newsweek

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