THE cover of Oliver Sacks’s new book shows the author listening to Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata. He looks ecstatic, which is appropriate for his exploration of the marvels of music, in particular the intricate relationship between music and the brain. Musicophilia is a wonderfully good read.
A renowned neurologist and prolific writer, Sacks was raised in a “house full of music”, though it wasn’t until 1966 when he started working with sleeping sickness patients that he began to wonder about its therapeutic qualities. These patients – the basis for his book Awakenings – had survived an encephalitis outbreak in the…
