General Books

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition

Oliver Sacks

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Subjects -> Entertainment -> Music -> Reference -> General
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Music -> Reference -> General AAS
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Music -> Theory, Composition & Performance -> Appreciation

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 86 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Disturbances 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Ulysses Grant knew two songs: one was the Yankee Doodle, the other was not. That's my kind of pun. I keep telling my Chinese friends that I do not believe in their tones. Tones are just a trick to fool dumb foreigners like me into thinking that the language is unlearnable.
Nabokov, one of my main heroes, tells us in his memoirs that music, for him, was just an arbitrary succession of more or less irritating sounds.
In other words, I am not left alone with my amusia.
I am happy that my affliction is not quite as bad as Nabokov's (whose son became an opera singer, by the way). I do enjoy listening to music and I love concerts. I just don't hear tones and I was the worse singer in living memory in my high school. Only the Bundeswehr appreciated my talent for marching songs. Reading Sacks shows me that it could have been much worse.
The multitude of possible problems is huge. Sacks gives us dozens of case studies, some studied intensively, some just based on correspondence. Music can be the cause or at least trigger of problems, like in some epileptic attacks, or the consequence of problems, like in some hallucinations. Music can be a problem when it disappears or when it intrudes. Music is used as a therapy for many problems.
The book is a veritable phenomenology of musical problems of the brain.
Which leads me to my mild criticism: after some of the stories, the telling of case after case wears you out. There seems to be no handle for explanations yet. Science seems to have a lot of pieces for the puzzle, but is still quite far away from a comprehensive understanding of our brain and mind.
One chapter with special fascination is the one on synesthesia. Nabokov had it as a child, though not in a version involving music. Sacks tells us, that Nab's mother had it too, which is mentioned in Speak, Memory, and that his wife and son had it as well. Transcending the brain, but still short of explanations.
A case that Sacks is not mentioning, that I 'encountered' in my literary excursions, is Kenzaburo Oe's son, who was born with a brain damage, who grew up as a handicapped child in a loving family, and who developed artistic talents as a composer. (Oe's Rise Up O Young Men recommended as an extended case study.)
Disturbances: Wilhelm Busch, a popular German writer/comedian/cartoonist (Max & Moritz) of the late 19th century had this to say about music: it is often considered disturbing because it is always coming along with noise.

Editorial Review:

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.

Codependent No More

Melody Beattie

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Mental Health -> Codependency
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Relationships -> Codependency
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Self-Help -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 163 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Directly to you 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

The author talks directly to you as you read and as a reader you are able to grasp so much helpful information. . I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for help with co-dependency and I also recommend for a perfect relationship I Love You. Now What?: Falling in Love is a Mystery, Keeping It Isn't

A life preserver. 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is a sanity saver. There are some inspirational things to take away from reading it. Beattie injects her own life story into this self-help book. Coupled with her other books, it makes for reflective and well written advice.

Codependent No More 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I haven't finished reading it yet but just by reading introduction and couple of chapters, I knew that book was what I was searching for... It is just what I need to get through difficult time...

Eye Opener 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book was a huuge eye opener for me. If you believe you might be codependent or want to find out more on the subject- this book is for you. It contains many examples of real people; as well as a list of habits and traits a codependent generally possesses. It also offers helpful tips to break the cycle and possibly change your life. I recommend this for anyone who is, thinks they might be, or have a codependent in their life.

Editorial Review:

An expert guide for codependents on how to stop controlling others and start caring for themselves.

Brain That Changes Itself, The: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science

M.D., Norman Doidge

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> Neuropsychology
Subjects -> Medicine -> Internal Medicine -> Neurology -> Neuroscience
Subjects -> Medicine -> Internal Medicine -> Neurology -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 106 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

“Fascinating. Doidge’s book is a remarkable and hopeful portrait of the endless adaptability of the human brain.” – Oliver Sacks

The discovery that our thoughts can change the structure and function of our brains – even into old age – is the most important breakthrough in neuroscience in four centuries. In this revolutionary look at the brain, bestselling author, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge, M.D., introduces both the brilliant scientists championing this new science of neuroplasticity and the astonishing progress of the people whose lives they’ve transformed. Introducing principles we can all use as well as a riveting collection of case histories – stroke patients cured, a woman with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, learning and emotional disorders overcome, IQs raised, and aging brains rejuvenated – The Brain That Changes Itself has “implications for all human beings, not to mention human culture, human learning and human history” (The New York Times).

“Readers will want to read entire sections aloud and pass the book on to someone who can benefit from it….Links scientific experimentation with personal triumph in a way that inspires awe.” - The Washington Post

The Migraine Brain: Your Breakthrough Guide to Fewer Headaches, Better Health

Carolyn Bernstein, Elaine McArdle

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Disorders & Diseases -> Pain Management
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Personal Health -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Personal Health -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

You know that your migraine isn't just a headache. But you may not know that migraine actually is a neurological disease. Affecting one in five women, one in twenty men, and one in twenty children, it's a debilitating, complex, and chronic condition that manifests in a combination of symptoms that can include excruciating head pain as well as other distinctive physical and emotional effects. Yet it's also a disease that you can get control of, improve, and manage, as Dr. Carolyn Bernstein has discovered in her seventeen years as a Harvard Medical School faculty member and practicing neurologist.

Praised for her excellence and compassion, the founder of the Women's Headache Center near Boston, and a migraine sufferer herself, Dr. Bernstein has helped hundreds of her patients get better. Now, with The Migraine Brain, the most comprehensive, up-to-the-minute book on migraines ever written, you will be able to do the same -- reduce the frequency and intensity of your migraines, learn how to prevent and curtail them and how to recover from them more quickly, and mitigate migraine's effects on every aspect of your life: in the workplace and at home and during sex and travel. Every migraine is different because everyone who gets a migraine has a distinctive "Migraine Brain" with its own sensitivities and triggers. That's why it's so important for you to develop a personalized wellness plan to radically reduce the number and severity of your migraines.

Dr. Bernstein also explains why migraines happen, why they are so often misdiagnosed, and why so few people get the right treatment for them. She reveals the latest research that shows that Migraine Brains share a hypersensitivity to stimuli -- the Migraine Brain can actually look different from others on a brain scan -- and is more likely to experience a cascade of neurological reactions that give rise to the common clusters of migraine symptoms. This breakthrough medical knowledge makes treatment and recovery possible with new migraine-specific drugs as well as with complementary treatments such as yoga, biofeedback, and an exercise regimen.

With the extraordinarily thorough recommendations of The Migraine Brain in your hands, you will be fully equipped with all the latest information you need to understand migraines and to help your family and co-workers understand that migraine isn't just a headache: it's a serious, yet treatable disease.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales

Oliver Sacks

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> Clinical Psychology
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> Mental Illness
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> Neuropsychology

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 111 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In his most extraordinary book, "one of the great clinical writers of the 20th century" (The New York Times) recounts the case histories of patients lost in the bizarre, apparently inescapable world of neurological disorders. Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; who are stricken with violent tics and grimaces or who shout involuntary obscenities; whose limbs have become alien; who have been dismissed as retarded yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.

If inconceivably strange, these brilliant tales remain, in Dr. Sacks's splendid and sympathetic telling, deeply human. They are studies of life struggling against incredible adversity, and they enable us to enter the world of the neurologically impaired, to imagine with our hearts what it must be to live and feel as they do. A great healer, Sacks never loses sight of medicine's ultimate responsibility: "the suffering, afflicted, fighting human subject."

Clinical Neuroanatomy Made Ridiculously Simple (3rd Edition; Book & CD-ROM)

Stephen Goldberg

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Subjects -> Medicine -> Basic Science -> Anatomy
Subjects -> Medicine -> Internal Medicine -> Neurology -> Neuroscience
Subjects -> Medicine -> Internal Medicine -> Neurology -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Neuroanatomy: the highlights 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

A brief overview of neuroanatomy in a clinical setting that makes a difficult subject accessible in an outline form.

Great reference book 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I'm in the process of preparing for neuropsych boards and this book has been a great reference for me. It helps explain concepts so that they are easier to retain for later recall. I recommend this book for anyone studying for boards or will be working with students and residents.

Excelent summary 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The book is an excrelent summary especially useful for first or second u=year sutidents of medice

it really is ridiculously simple 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I had to get this book for class, and I only found it slightly useful. I had some problems in class understanding the different spinothalamic tracks, and I went to this book when nothing else was making sense. It did help me finally understand that whole part of neuroanatomy, however it probably took me an hour to get all the useful information from the book and 30 min to do the CD. (The CD was helpful but not nearly enough.) Basically, it was a very good opening book when I was confused, but I quickly had to turn to High Yield to actually learn something.

Editorial Review:

This now-classic text presents the most relevant points in clinical neuroanatomy with mnemonics, humor and case presentations. The book now includes and interactive CD with a lab section, 3D rotations, interactive anatomy, tutorial on neurologic localization, and quiz. Third edition.

The 36-Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring for Persons with Alzheimer Disease, Related Dementing Illnesses, and Memory Loss in Later Life

Nancy L. Mace, Peter V. Rabins MD

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Disorders & Diseases -> Alzheimer's Disease
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Disorders & Diseases -> Nervous System
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 86 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"I welcome with enthusiasm the third edition of this book for families and friends of patients with dementing illnesses. It has served well in its prior appearances and should accomplish even more with this edition." -- Paul R. McHugh, M.D., in the foreword

Through two editions, this best-selling book has remained the "bible" for families who are giving care to people with Alzheimer disease. The 36-Hour Day has offered comfort and support to millions of people in North America and, in translations and adapted editions, throughout the rest of the world. For this third edition, the authors have retained the structure, scope, and purpose of the original book, while thoroughly updating chapters to reflect the latest medical research and the current delivery of care.

Topics that have been added or extensively revised include: Updated terminology and statistics • New material on the evaluation of persons with dementia • Updated changes in laws on driving • A new section on hospice care • New information on assisted living facilities and financing care • Information on other types of dementia • The latest findings on eating and nutrition • New medical research in areas such as drugs, genetics, and diagnostic tests. The revised appendices include: New bibliographic references • websites • Updated addresses of associations and state offices.

Praise for previous editions:

"The best guide of its kind." -- Chicago Sun Times

"An excellent book for families who are caring for persons with dementia... A book that physicians can confidently recommend to the families of their patients." -- Journal of the American Medical Association

"Excellent guidance and clear information of a kind that the family needs... The authors offer the realistic advice that sometimes it is better to concede the patient's frailties than to try to do something about them, and that a compassionate sense of humor often helps." -- New York Times

"An excellent, practical manual for families and professionals involved in the care of persons with progressive illnesses... The book is specific and thought-provoking, and it will be helpful to anyone even remotely involved with an 'impaired' person... Highly recommended, especially for public and nursing libraries." -- Library Journal

" The 36-Hour Day has served its readers well. The revised edition should be even more useful both to family caregivers and professional health care providers." -- HMO Practice

"The reader who is familiar with the first edition will recognize the strengths that continue in the revised edition -- numerous case examples, practical advice, thoroughness of coverage, and communication of caring and humane attitudes while presenting information that may be sensitive and upsetting to families." -- Clinical Gerontologist

Beyond Codependency: And Getting Better All the Time

Melody Beattie

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Mental Health -> Codependency
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Recovery -> Substance Abuse

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

You're learning to let go, to live your life free of the grip of someone else's problems. And yet you find you've just started on the long journey of recovery. Let Melody Beattie, author of the classic Codependent No More, help you along your way. A guided tour past the pitfalls of recovery, Beyond Codependency is dedicated to those struggling to master the art of self-care. It is a book about what to do once the pain has stopped and you've begun to suspect that you have a life to live. It is about what happens next.

In simple, straightforward terms, Beattie takes you into the territory beyond codependency, into the realm of recovery and relapse, family-of-origin work and relationships, surrender and spirituality. With personal stories, hard-won insights, and activities, her book teaches the lessons of dealing with shame, growing in self-esteem, overcoming deprivation, and getting past fatal attractions long enough to find relationships that work.

"Melody Beattie is an American phenomenon . . . She connects with age-old quests for self-improvement and rebirth. . . [And she] understands being overboard, which helps her throw best-selling lifelines to those still adrift."
Time

"[This book] goes beyond how we hurt to how we heal."
Veronica Ray, author of Choosing Happiness

Neuroanatomy: An Atlas of Structures, Sections, and Systems (Book with CD-ROM)

Duane E. Haines

List Price: $44.95 By: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Amazon Marketplace: 23 new & used starting at $5.19

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Subjects -> Medicine -> Internal Medicine -> Neurology -> Neuroscience
Subjects -> Medicine -> Internal Medicine -> Neurology -> General
Subjects -> Medicine -> Internal Medicine -> Neurology -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

WARNING --EDITION #7 2 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

The 7th edition has inexplicably omitted most of the gross dissections of the previous editions!

Good Atlas, but hard to read 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Haines Atlas has some strong points and some weak points. If the option was given, I would have given it 3.5 stars because it probably is above the average when it comes to atlases and I have not used a different atlas to compare it to.

Strong points:
-The real images are great (CTs and MRIs).
-Cross sections and coronal sections are also well done.
-USMLE style questions at the end of the book are great for medical students (such as myself) and helped me do very will on the NBME Neuroscience shelf exam.
- Online version is a great tool

Weak points:
- As a text, this atlas is VERY confusing.
- Although the diagrams are decent, the color scheme is not explained very well and they use a lot of abbreviations that aren't intuitive, constantly need to be checked, and often times differ from one diagram to the other

This atlas would be best used with a different textbook (I personally recommend Basic Clinical Neuroscience by Young, Young, and Tolbert).

Also, if you are a medical student, combine the two books above with the Pre-test for Neurosciences by Allan Siegel for review of NBME shelf exam and USMLE step 1 exam.

Editorial Review:

...provide structural & functional insights into the human nervous system, emphasizing their clinical relevance

Paths to Recovery: Al-Anon's Steps, Traditions and Concepts

Al-Anon Family Group Head Inc

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Recovery -> Alcoholism
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Recovery -> Drug Dependency
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Recovery -> Twelve-Step Programs

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

You want recovery? Buy this book and work it! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

You want recovery? Work the Steps and Traditions. This is the book that will help you do it if you have been affected by someone else's drinking, thinking and/or behavior. As one other reviewer has already stated, if I could have only one Al-Anon book, this would be it. This book is truly a blessing.

Paths To Recovery 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

If you are working the steps, this book is a great guide. It offers Insight on the steps, members Experience, Strength and Hope, and some guiding questions.

From the perspective of alcoholics, AA History, and Women Pioneers 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I'm an AA. My former wife was an Al-Anon though she is now deceased. I've devoted 19 years to researching the spiritual roots of Alcoholics Anonymous, the Twelve Steps, and the early program. Making Known the Biblical History and Roots of Alcoholics Anonymous: A Sixteen-Year Research, Writing, Publishing, and Fact Dissemination Project. One of the first books I was given by an A.A. oldtimer was Lois Remembers. And I hustled out and bought two Al-Anon books. I believe all of us in the recovery movement should have the perspective of both A.A. and of Al-Anon. My former wife and her sister (both married to alcoholics) believed they never could have made it without Al-Anon. And whether we recover, reconcile, or just make amends, we need to know this family program. I also think Al-Anons and AAs need to know how much the two programs were alike at the beginning. Early A.A. in Akron dealt with families--fathers, mothers, children.Real Twelve Step Fellowship History. They all attended. Dr. Bob's wife Anne Ripley Smith dealt with the wives, and actually counseled Lois Wilson with some frequency.Anne Smith's Journal, 1933-1939: A.A.'s Principles of Success. Henrietta Seiberling was prominent in early A.A. development, and so was Clarace Williams, wife of T. Henry Williams, at whose whom the family meetings were held.Henrietta B. Seiberling: Ohio's Lady with a Cause, Third Edition. Anne Smith started a woman's group a year after A.A. was founded. And Lois herself wrote that Al-Anon people should never forget the important role that Anne played. In one sense, we are all in this together. For those of us who are believers, God is the One with whom we relate and seek to establish a relationship.By the Power of God: A Guide To Early A.A. Groups and Forming Similar Groups Today . And the Biblical principles of early A.A. were applied alike to women and family members. The Good Book and the Big Book: A.A.'s Roots in the Bible (Bridge Builders Edition), and The Good Book-Big Book Guidebook. Excellent reading. Important!