Musicophilia and The Martian

Current Read: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham
Current Listen: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Hello, Internet! First, a quick update. I made a second Youtube video! I made a video based on @booksandquills "On My Shelf" series, where she gets numbers from her followers for a shelf and a book and then just shows you five random books from her shelves! It was a fun and EASY video to make, and I just saw that she RETWEETED my tweet to her about the video, which is just amazing. She has 20k twitter follows and almost 140k Youtube subscribers, NO BIG. Also discovered this morning that she put the video up on a playlist of other responses to her series. (Insert small freak out here.) You can check out her original video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M07pGnd-ZFQ

You can find MY video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fbcYU-934g

If you want to give me a quick like and subscribe, I would really appreciate it! My goal for that video was 30 views (haha starting small), and I'm there already! It was amazing if I could get 100 views.

Now, on to what I've been reading. It is the first week of my fall break, so I've been reading and listening quite a bit. First, I finished Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks. That fulfilled the book I started but never finished category on my reading challenge. It was just an exceptional book. I took it slow to start, trying to read about a 20 page chapter a night. Oliver Sacks, who died earlier this year, wrote books that could be described almost as medical anthropology. His most famous book is probably The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, which I want to read some day. Each chapter is devoted to a different condition or phenomenon, and each chapter is full of both anecdotes based on his experience with his patients and a TON of research.

I learned a lot while reading this book, particularly about music and neuroscience, but it was so easy to read because each chapter is rooted in stories rather than just in the science. A few topics that really stood out:

-Amusia, when people cannot perceive music, often due to brain injuries or strokes
-Musical hallucinations, which are more or less "musical imagery" (songs in your head) that is completely uncontrollable and interferes with your life--several patients could not sleep because they always heard very clear music that sounded like it was being played in the next room
-Musician's dystonia, when musicians lose control over certain small muscles that impact their playing--violinists or pianists with a few fingers, and even a horn player with his embouchure
-Williams Syndrome, a condition characterized by low IQ, hypersocial behavior and a profound love of music--he described it as almost exactly the opposite of autism. This was my favorite chapter.

The whole book was just craziness. I DEFINITELY recommend it for musicians and lovers of music.

Also, I finished The Martian about a half hour ago. I've been doing a lot of cooking and listening this fall break. This book was about the perfect sci-fi adventure. I'm sure the movie (which I'm seeing tomorrow) will be EPIC. From what I see on IMDB, the casting was pretty phenomenal. Mark Watney is a pretty awesome character, so even though I'm not a HUGE Matt Damon fan, I'm sure it'll be okay.

The book itself can only be described as a love letter to science. The entire book is filled with pretty good, understandable explanations of very complicated, actual rocket science. Mark Watney, due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, is abandoned on Mars when his crew leaves amidst a dangerous dust storm. Since Mars is VERY far away, he has to figure out how to survive several years with the limited supplies given to his crew for their 30 day mission. Meanwhile, back on Earth, NASA has to figure out if there is a way to keep him alive until rescue is possible. It was so fun to listen to them think outside the box and problem solve their way to solutions, and I'm sure the movie will be a fan favorite at the Oscars this year.

Finally, a reading challenge update. I've changed one book that I'll be reading. Though I am OBVIOUSLY still going to read Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel at some point, I've decided on a shorter book for the category of "a book that is based on or that was turned into a TV show." A few weeks ago, Kristina Horner, another booktuber, was talking about the two novels that have been written based on the show Veronica Mars, which is one of my favorite shows ever. I got them both from the library and forgot until today that that was a category. They are much shorter and less dense, so I thought I would give myself a break. I might actually finish that Veronica Mars book today, because just like the show, it is so far quite addictive and fun. Audible-wise, next up is Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, which has been downloaded for months now. That's all she read!