Waking the Spirit: A Musician's Journey Healing Body, Mind, and Soul [Paperback]

An Oliver Sacks Foundation Best Book of the Year Selection, Finalist for the Books for a Better Life Best First Book Award, and aPeopleMagazine Pick in Nonfiction.

The astounding story of a critically ill musician who is saved by music andreturns to the same hospital to help heal others

Andrew Schulman, a fifty-seven-year-old professional guitarist, had a close brush with death on the night of July 16, 2009. Against the oddsand with the help of musiche survived: a medical miracle.

Once fully recovered, Andrew resolved to use his musical gifts to help critically ill patients at Mount Sinai Beth Israels ICU. InWaking the Spirit, youll learn the astonishing stories of the people hes met along the wayboth patients and doctorsand see the incredible role music can play in a modern hospital setting.

Schulman expertly weaves cutting-edge research on neuroscience and medicine, as well as what hes learned as a professional musician, to explore the power of music to heal the body and awaken the spirit.

Earnest but affable memoir....He talks with neuroscientists and psychiatrists and explores the legacy of Pythagoras, the ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher who was among the first to recognize the healing properties of music. Along the way, Schulman posits that the relationship between the pain we feel and the songs and compositions we love has its roots in a tender, transcendent form of symbiosis. Meghan Daum,The New York Times Book Review

Waking the Spiritis an inspiring story that teaches many important spiritual lessons, but the principal one is that to give thanks, you have to give. By healing others, he healed himself. You will never listen to music in the same way again. John Kralik, author of365 Thank Yous

An inspiring personal story of the ageless power of music to comfort and to heal supported with plentiful compelling scientific evidence. CalÓ#