Book description
An illuminating book about the power of music, from the bestselling
author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Oliver Sacks has been
hailed by the New York Times as 'one of the great clinical writers of
the twentieth century'. In this eagerly awaited new book, the subject of
his uniquely literate scrutiny is music: our relationship with it, our
facility for it, and what this most universal of passions says about us.
In chapters examining savants and synaesthetics, depressives and musical
dreamers, Sacks succeeds not only in articulating the musical experience
but in locating it in the human brain. He shows that music is not simply
about sound, but also movement, visualization, and silence. He follows
the experiences of patients suddenly drawn to or suddenly divorced from
music. And in so doing he shows, as only he can, both the extraordinary
spectrum of human expression and the capacity of music to heal. Wise,
compassionate and compellingly readable, Musicophilia promises, like all
the best writing, to alter our conception of who we are and how we
function, to lend a fascinating insight into the mysteries of the mind,
and to show us what it is to be human. Biographies Oliver Sacks was
educated in London, Oxford, California and New York. He is a professor
of clinical neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is the
author of many books, including the bestselling The Man Who Mistook His
Wife for a Hat and Awakenings.
