Customer Reviews
Musicophilia (2008) by Oliver Sacks - By: Whigwood, 06 Jan 2009 
It has taken me nearly six weeks to wade through only the first third of this marathon of almost 400 pages. And the reason? I can only take Sacks' writing style, which is almost Victorianin nature,in small doses. Each time I pick up the book again, I wonder if the marker has been misplaced, since similar anecdotal stories seem to make up the entire literary content. It is a bit like reading later Aldous Huxley; a rambling series of musings, arbitrarily subdivided by chapter headings. In describing the interactions between music & "the brain", Sacks does not provide anything which is not already known, & often experienced, by many people & I am left wondering what is the point of this book. It could certainly have been writtenin half its current length. It is of note that the list of individual acknowledgements at the back of the book amount to almost 250 names, which is almost a workin itself. I might add that I found this list almost as interesting as the rest of the book!
I will persevere with this tome for a couple more weeks, but I doubt if I will ever finish it.
Interesting, yet disappointing in many ways - By: Lazy Lee, 02 Jan 2009 
Oliver Sacks tells wonderful stories about how patients with severe brain dysfunctions manage to recover their faculties through new treatments of various kinds, & his previous books, notably Awakenings & The Man who Mistake His Wife for a Hat made Sacks famous for their revalatory & interesting nature.
This one, unfortunately, only goes part way to exploring the unusual appreciation that humans have for music, & goes too farin documenting cases of patients from the 1800s who lost all their faculties due to some sort of brain trauma, yet were able to retain their singing, instrument playing or musical appreciation capabilities.
Interesting topics such as synesthesia & perfect pitch are explored, but the book focuses almost entirely on the effect of either clasical music or basic traditional songs on people, & it does so by rendering citation after citation - many of them Sacks' own publications - & also has many pages where the footnotes compete for dominance with the main text.
Where is the impact of modern popular music on people? There is a brief reference to what Sacks calls "brainworms" (otherwise known as jingles), that can infuriate one for days & nights, but scant commentary on what - aside from well tested marketing campaigns - makes certain music so appealing to people.
Towards the end of the book, I tired of the countless permutations of syndromesin which, guess what, musicality survives where all other interaction fails, but by then I wasn't being told anything new or interesting.
A shame, since an up to date volume on this subject, based on a large body of new research, would be most interesting.
Worth a read - By: Fredward Beasley, 10 Nov 2008 
This is a pretty good book, of interest to anyone who feels themselves somewhat musicophiliac & wants to know more about how music has the effect it does. Musicophilia isn't particularly focused & doesn't really go too deep into how music works on the brain, it's mostly just a string of case studies of people & conditions involving strange & intense relationships with music. It's well-written & accessible, & worth a read, though it doesn't attempt to give any major insights into why music is so important to peoplein general.
"Musicophilia" is preferable to "This is your Brain on Music" by Daniel Levitin, which was released around the same time & deals with somewhat similar themes, though Levitin's book includes much more technical info on music & neurology. This info is presentedin a style that is dry, unengaging & lackingin clarity. Sacks on the other hand is an effortlessly good writer. For that reason, this book is worth reading, though, I repeat, it's basically a string of case studies
