Musicophilia.

I've decided to share my opinion on my reading materials. Just for fun. I mean, hey, it's my blog!

Ok, so I just finished Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks.

Let me first preface my opinion with the fact that I am not a neuroscientist. I really don't know much about the brain other than what I learned in introductory biology.

Dr. Sacks has a very distinct writing style. I've read him before, and enjoyed it. I have always gotten the sense that he was always told by his editor, "Oliver, are you serious? Tone the snob down." However, that delightful hint of snob definitely is fun to read. And it certainly doesn't get in the way of his natural compassion and curiosity that are easy to see when he discusses his patients.

Musicophilia is fascinating. Sacks recounts many different types of cases where music was a blessing, a curse, or an innate gift to those with neurological problems. My favorite chapter was about patients that have Williams syndrome---a small deletion in a chromosome leads to many issues (the inability to identify geometric patterns, low IQ, distinct facial features, etc.) and amazing innate musical ability.

However, the book isn't the best showing for Sacks. I feel like half of the book he refers to his other books in which he details either similar or the same case. Yes, we get it, you wrote other books. But it feels like an informative documentary that keeps on getting interrupted by commercials. The overall storytelling nature that I enjoyed in the other book I read by Sacks (The Island of the Colorblind) is found only within the individual chapters. That's great when you just want to read one chapter at a time, but it feels somewhat jarring when you're reading larger chunks of the book.

Overall, I'd say read it. If you don't know anything about neuroscience, it's fine---he does a good job of explaining the basics. And the stories are unreal. I would judge it to be a 3.5/5---borrow it from the library, but don't buy it.