Binding: Hardcover
EAN: 9780330418379
ISBN: 0330418378
Label: Picador
Manufacturer: Picador
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: November 02, 2007
Publisher: Picador
Studio: Picador

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Rating: - better than most medical writing
Having both a strong interest in music and a medical training, this book greatly appealed to me. Sacks is also a good speaker, and although I would have bought this book anyway, the lecture I attended didn't do anything to dissuade me from doing so.

Having read copious medical text, I always baulk at anything that might remotely stink of such, when choosing my recreational reading. Musicophilia does discuss the dry scientific evidence, in a fairly in-depth dry scientific way. This, ... Read More

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Rating: - Not as good as I had hoped
Really read like a collection of articles - slightly repetitious, surprisingly little engagement with the depth of the topic. Lots of anecdotes - maybe that's the way that knowledge proceeds in neurology? Anyway, it's back to 'Music and the Mind' for me, and then perhaps on to 'The Singing Neanderthals'.

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Rating: - Minds making music
By now, it's a given that an Oliver Sacks' book is worth your time and close attention. His particular talent lies in making the science interesting without becoming a "pop-science" writer. This is not an easy achievement, but Sacks manages it with facility. He can explain the science in terms of case studies - many of which have claimed his medical attention. He does this while mixing in experiences of his own and some personal reflections which are anything but intrusions. While some of his books ... Read More

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Rating: - Disappointing
I am usually a fan of Oliver Sacks but this is a disappointing book. I am about halfway through and on the verge of putting it down, although will perservere as it's a fast read (ie. lightweight and not amazingly thought-provoking). It just reads, as someone else said, more like a series of magazine articles, with each chapter ("article") simply being a list of half a dozen or so interesting cases, but without much analysis of the whys and wherefores. Lightweight, unsatisfying and not up to his usual ... Read More

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Rating: - A little clunky
I got quite excited when I read articles about this book. It has not really lived up to my expectations.

It tells you about people who hear music in their heads, people with perfect pitch who lose it and vice versa, people with tinnitus and so on. The trouble for me was that in the end it becomes just a big long list of notes on the patients Sachs has treated. I could have used a bit more context, or even philosophical speculation and wonder. But the author is a medical man so he confines ... Read More

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