Musicophilia

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

To be fair, a lot of how much I enjoy a book depends on my expectations going in.  I wanted to understand some of the mysteries behind music...why do some people like rock and others country? for instance...or does music actually help an athlete run longer or faster?  Exactly how does music work to get us to feel patriotic, or happy, or sad?  Why is music in the minor key perceived as dark and the  major key happy?  Why I thought these kinds of questions would be answered in this book I have no idea.  But I was disappointed.  It is true that some of these questions are answered, kind of, but the organization of the book makes it hard to get what I was looking for.  It seemed to me that Sacks merely searched "music" in his computer files of patients, then grouped them together according to diagnosis.  In fact, in several instances, he tells us what he prescribed to help the patient.  Fine if you are a doctor or fellow-sufferer, but not relevant to most of us. In some cases, there was no explanation or resolution, just a list of observations.   Since I was able to highlight about 10 min. worth of information, it was not a total loss, but not what I was looking for.


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