Revised and Expanded
With the same trademark compassion and erudition he brought to The Man
Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks explores the place music
occupies in the brain and how it affects the human condition. In
Musicophilia, he shows us a variety of what he calls "musical
misalignments." Among them: a man struck by lightning who suddenly
desires to become a pianist at the age of forty-two; an entire group of
children with Williams syndrome, who are hypermusical from birth; people
with "amusia," to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and
pans; and a man whose memory spans only seven seconds-for everything but
music. Illuminating, inspiring, and utterly unforgettable,
Musicophilia is Oliver Sacks' latest masterpiece.