Books littered with fantasy and fiction have never caught my eye or imagination much at all. I enjoy reading books that fill me with knowledge, real life experiences and interesting fact or honest opinion. The books I like to read stretch from Clarkson's works of madness right up to the business history of Marshall amplification. So by reading this review I am afraid you must realise it falls a bit bias of a man that has never enjoyed reading about wizards or vampires.

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain is exactly that. Oliver Sacks is a neurologist and amateur musician who writes adventure stories of the brain he has encountered in his life. Musicophilia concentrates mainly on music related tales but every now and again steps out of it's boundaries when he thinks it needs be done. You can find out more about Oliver Sacks on www.oliversacks.com. I would also try to interest you in watching this charming video I found on Youtube which really highlights some of the importance of the work Oliver Sacks and people like him are doing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9rZBssnl-A&fea ture=fvw.

The first two pages and the back cover are littered with quotes from: Esquire, Sunday Times, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, Sunday Telegraph, Herald, Sunday Herald, Scotland on Sunday, Irish Times and New Scientist all agreeing, on different levels, that this book is captivating, magical, compassionate and fascinating.

This book starts off with a compelling preface which questions the the seriousness of music, describing it as "meaningless tonal patterns". It then engages the reader in some history and philosophy before indulging its self in some opinions, phycology and science and concluding by explaining the purpose of the book.

Every chapter tells a different story or of a different music orientated disease, illness or cure. It takes the reader down every route of the human musical psyche. At times it is painfully interesting to the point it is impossible to put down but the book doesn't stop at interesting fact. Musicophilia is at times upsetting, at times funny and at times simply amazing. Oliver Sacks has a definite knack of introducing a character perfectly, so the reader feels as though they know them personally, and then exploring the territory of that persons brain. It is riddled with anecdotes and is clinically detailed without ever touching on being laborious.

Each chapter follows on from the last and the book is split up into 4 sections, each with at least 6 chapters. Part I: Haunted by Music gives the reader an insight into an almost supernatural and sometimes scary series of haunting musical events. Part II: A Range of Musicality has 8 chapters spanning from Stereo Perception, Blindness in relation to music right through to fascinating chapter about absolute pitch. Part III: Memory, Movement and Music; is a bit more technical and concentrates quite a bit on illness. Part IV: Emotion, Identity and Music is full of beautiful stories about truly unique individuals which Sacks pays homage to by giving them a special and emotional place in a powerful section of the book.

I find a lot of scientific, psychological or philosophical books can get full of daunting terminology and this book avoids it where possible. Oliver Sacks has managed to go into just enough detail to explain everything without giving me a headache. More technical and detailed information can be found in the footnotes, which at time can lead you to forget what was going on in the story, but if you are too engaged in what is going on it is easy to ignore them, at least until a later date.

My only grievance with this book is arrangement of the stories. The book doesn't end as well as it begins I feel. Obviously some stories are more fascinating or memorable than others and unfortunately It does tend to get less and less interesting after chapter 26 (of 29). It took an awful amount of force for me to write that just then because I am not trying to imply at all that it gets to a point where it is not interesting. I just feel that the last few chapters maybe better suited earlier on.

Really though I just wanted the book to go on and on, I want him to write a Musicophilia II, maybe I should just buy one of his other 9 books.