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Also by Oliver Sacks:

On the Move, May 2015
Hardcover / e-Book
Awakenings, June 2013
e-Book (reprint)
Hallucinations, November 2012
Hardcover / e-Book
Musicophilia, October 2008
Paperback
Musicophilia, October 2007
Hardcover
Oaxaca Journal, October 2005
Trade Size
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, April 1996
Trade Size (reprint)

MUSICOPHILIA
By: Oliver Sacks

Tales of Music and the Brain

Knopf
October 2007
On Sale: October 16, 2007
400 pages
ISBN: 1400040817
EAN: 9781400040810
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction

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—from a man who is struck by lightning and suddenly inspired to become a pianist at the age of forty-two, to an entire group of children with Williams syndrome, who are hypermusical from birth; from people with “amusia,” to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and pans, to a man whose memory spans only seven seconds—for everything but music.

Our exquisite sensitivity to music can sometimes go wrong: Sacks 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.

Media Buzz

Fair Game with Faith Salie - August 12, 2008
Fair Game with Faith Salie - May 27, 2008
Weekend Edition Saturday - December 15, 2007
Talk of the Nation - November 9, 2007
All Things Considered - October 21, 2007
Fresh Air - NPR - October 17, 2007