I’ve been an enormous fan of Oliver Sacks for a long time, first reading his articles in the New Yorker years ago, then enjoying a number of his books. I think “An Anthropologist On Mars” is my particular favorite, the tale of the surgeon with Tourette’s Syndrome topping anything else I’ve ready by him.
He’s got a new book out called “Musicophilia — Tales Of Music And The Brain”, which I can’t wait to read. As usual, the book is a collection of essays, each focusing on a different person with some neurological issue that impinges on their perception of the world. This time the central theme is obviously the human relationship to music and features a tale of a noted British conductor who lost his short term memory and can only reconnect to the world through music, a man who was struck by lightning and became obsessed with playing concert piano, and children with Williams’ Syndrome who are sort of musical savants.
SEED Magazine has a good profile of Sacks in its October issue, which includes his own tale of how music helped him heal after an injury and explores how he used stories from his own life to tie together the threads of this new book.
