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Posts Tagged ‘Book’

Oliver Sack’s Musicophilia bridges the gap between music and the brain by using case studies he has personally dealt with and otherwise. The stories range from the totally bizarre to the horribly tragic. Music can affect the brain in peculiar ways. The studies cover how music cannot only be a miracle for the brain but also a torturous thing that haunts it.

The book is organized with chapters that focus on specific ways in which music affects the brain. The book primarily focuses on telling the stories of those affected by music. However, it also analyzes the stories to an extent and talks about how our knowledge of music and the brain has grown because of the case presented. The conclusions that Sacks draws throughout the book are interesting and engaging.

One particularly engaging story was about a Parkinson’s patient who used the mesmerizing sounds of a drum circle to calm the tics. His circle consisted of other Parkinson’s patients. Sacks recalls watching this inspiring group all sit down at their respective drums, doing their best to not let their tics get in the way as they waited for the leader to start. As soon as he did, the tics stopped almost instantaneously. It was as if some unexplainable force of nature had somehow seeped into the bodies of these patients and enraptured them in serenity and control. It has been proven that a steady, predictable drumbeat, when played in the presence of Parkinson’s patients, can almost completely prevent any tics for the duration of the drumming. Even so, we have not even scratched the surface when it comes to using music in a therapeutic setting. That being said, Sacks uses this case and many more to prove that the beneficial effects of music are simply overwhelming and must be investigated further.

For anyone who is interested in music, psychology, or just wants to be amazed, Musicophilia is an excellent read and is extremely informative. This book hopefully will encourage many to see the importance of continued research in the field of music psychology.

In 1976, on a frozen field in the midst of the worst winter storm anyone could remember, gunfire rained down on a group of state narcotics agents near Columbus, Mississippi. A heroin deal had gone bad, and a sniper for the dealers opened fire with deadly accuracy. A wounded agent fell in a pool of his own blood, but what should have been fatal was not, because of a voice that commanded the young Captain to bring the bullet proof vests to what appeared to be a routine deal. I know this to be true, because I was that young Captain.

Similar stories of the paranormal and supernatural are to be found in a new book, “The Mystery of Fate: Common Coincidence or Divine Intervention?”

The Mystery of Fate: Common Coincidence or Divine Intervention, a collection of short stories, is a honeycomb of treasures for anyone who has ever walked alone–pausing to look back–feeling someone was near but seeing no one; for those who have shivered suddenly as if “someone just walked across my grave;” and for those who felt a faint buzzing, an enchanting melody or distant murmuring near their ears and asked a loved one, “What did you say?”–only to see quizzical glances and hear, “I didn’t say anything.” The stories in this anthology suggest that someone is shadowing us, and it just might be–goodness and mercy.

The book’s stories of love lost and rediscovered shrink our physical confines, detail close encounters with denizens of the deep, paint the thin line between happiness and disaster and life and death, and bear testimony to the smallness of the universe and the mutual commonality we share across many divides. The harvest of miracles contained in this anthology refutes those who embrace sterile paradigms and say that anything that is not measurable, quantifiable, or cannot bear the scrutiny of the scientific process should be thrown in the fire. Such a statement is not scientific itself, but philosophical, and violates its own rules and must be–thrown in the fire by its own standards. The Mystery of Fate is a book to rescue from any fire if only to gaze into tales with intimate flames that sear away comfortable dogma and call into question the randomness of life.

I decided to review “The Social Media Marketing Book” by Dan Zarella based on a recommendation from a friend.

I am going to give this book a two star rating, which may be somewhat controversial. I was excited to read a social media marketing book. I do not feel like this book lived up to that expectation. The author is obviously very knowledgeable about social media, but there is virtually no information in utilizing these resources for marketing purposes. I was a little concerned in the beginning when the author spent such a great deal of time defining websites like Twitter and Facebook, and went to great length with terminology like “friending” and “tweeting.” I do not say this lightly, since I think most everyone would be familiar with this terminology, at least anyone with a basic Facebook page. Having said that, there is relevant information for the reader. The reader will learn many websites and terms than can certainly assist in increasing the learning velocity of a web “newbie,” but that was not the book that I was expecting to read. I wanted the book to end in a climax of material that the reader would be able to combine into a solid plan to market or build a presence on the net that would translate into real dollars. If the book could have delivered more on the marketing aspect, I would have gladly given it more stars.

I believe that for the right reader, this book is relevant, right now. I think most people in their twenties, would find this book too basic, or entry-level. I do not think that in five years, this book will be relevant. The problem with technology and technology based information is that it becomes a victim to rapid evolution of technology. There are dozens of companies that I could site to provide a basis for the fact that a technology and social media applications have and will continue to change at such a rapid pace that one can only imagine the social media that will be available five years from now. MySpace was a pioneer in social media, and now it is dwarfed by Facebook. Facebook will eventually be dwarfed be the next big thing. I am not saying that social media will cease to be relevant; I think it will continue to grow. I just believe that this specific book will not be relevant. It is the nature of technology. The Law of Accelerating Returns suggests that progress will continue to grow exponentially as humans learn more; we also learn how to learn better and faster.

The question of whether new media technologies are mind numbing is an age old one, going back to classical antiquity. Nicholas Carr, in his new book The Shallows, a nuanced and considered study on the ill effects of too much Internet usage, uses the fascinating example of Plato and Socrates.

History of New Media Technologies

In Plato’s well-known dialogue Phaedrus, the philosopher has Socrates discussing the merits of writing with Phaedrus. Socrates relates a story about a meeting between the Egyptian god Theuth, who amongst other things invented the alphabet, and Thamus, a king of Egypt. The technologically savvy Theuth argues that writing will be a boon to society, allowing for the storage of information and hence providing ‘a recipe for memory and wisdom’. Thamus disagrees, and suggests that writing will have a deleterious effect on memory as people lazily rely on what is held in these early data banks. Thamus goes on to say that writing will not create true wisdom, as people will not cultivate their minds. It will rather create a kind of fake wisdom. The dialogue makes clear that Socrates agrees with Thamus.

Plato was not on Socrates’ side in this matter. In The Republic he argues against poetry, which in antiquity represented the oral tradition. Poetry was declaimed in public, rather than written down. Plato felt the advantages of writing superior to a purely oral culture. Writing would encourage the reader to be logical, self-reliant and rigorous.

Even back in fourth century BC Greece there was concern that the new technology of alphabet based writing had the power to change the way the mind worked. Many centuries later, modern machines would have a noticeable effect on thought and literature. In 1882 German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche found his eye sight failing and couldn’t concentrate when trying to write with pen and paper. To resolve this problem he ordered a Danish-made Malling-Hansen Writing Ball typewriter, which would allow him to close his eyes and tap away on the keys. The philosopher found that the forceful banging of the contraption during composition had a discernable effect on his writing, making his prose tighter and more telegraphic. He concluded that, ‘Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.’