Reading Music

From the award-winning author of Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret comes a fascinating, hilarious, kaleidoscopic biography of the Fab Four.On April 10th 2020, it will be exactly 50 years since Paul McCartney announced the break-up of the Beatles. At that point, we will be at the same distance in time from 1970 as 1970 was from 1920, the year Al Jolson's ‘Swanee’ was the bestselling record and Gustav Holst composed The Planets.The Beatles continue to occupy a position unique in popular culture. They have entered people's minds in a way that did not occur before, and has not occurred since. Their influence extended way beyond the realm of music to fashion, politics, class, religion and ethics. Countless books have doggedly catalogued the minutiae of The Beatles. If you want to know the make of George Harrison's first car you will always be able to find the answer (a second hand, two-door, blue Ford Anglia 105E Deluxe, purchased from Brian Epstein's friend Terry Doran, who worked at a dealership in Warrington). Who was the only Beatle Yoko Ono could name, and why? Ringo. Because ‘ringo’ means ‘apple’ in Japanese. All very interesting, but there is, as yet, no book about The Beatles that combines the intriguing minutiae of their day-to-day lives with broader questions about their effect — complicated and fascinating — on the world around them, their contemporaries, and generations to come.Until now.Craig Brown's 1-2-3-4: The Beatles in Time is a unique, kaleidoscopic examination of The Beatles phenomenon — part biography, part anthropology, part memoir, by turns humorous and serious, elegiac and speculative. It follows the unique “exploded biography” form of his internationally bestselling, Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret.

“I’d come from a long ways off and had started a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else.”So writes Bob Dylan in Chronicles: Volume One, his remarkable book exploring critical junctures in his life and career. Through Dylan’s eyes and open mind, we see Greenwich Village, circa 1961, when he first arrives in Manhattan. Dylan’s New York is a magical city of possibilities—smoky, nightlong parties; literary awakenings; transient loves and unbreakable friendships. Elegiac observations are punctuated by jabs of memories, penetrating and tough. With the book’s side trips to New Orleans, Woodstock, Minnesota, and points west, Chronicles: Volume One is an intimate and intensely personal recollection of extraordinary times.By turns revealing, poetical, passionate, and witty, Chronicles: Volume One is a mesmerizing window on Bob Dylan’s thoughts and influences. Dylan’s voice is distinctively American: generous of spirit, engaged, fanciful, and rhythmic. Utilizing his unparalleled gifts of storytelling and the exquisite expressiveness that are the hallmarks of his music, Bob Dylan turns Chronicles: Volume One into a poignant reflection on life, and the people and places that helped shape the man and the art.The celebrated first memoir from arguably the most influential singer-songwriter in the country, Bob Dylan.EndorsementsWinner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

Presenting twelve breakthrough practices for bringing creativity into all human endeavors, The Art of Possibility is the dynamic product of an extraordinary partnership. The Art of Possibility combines Benjamin Zander's experience as conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and his talent as a teacher and communicator with psychotherapist Rosamund Stone Zander's genius for designing innovative paradigms for personal and professional fulfillment. The authors' harmoniously interwoven perspectives provide a deep sense of the powerful role that the notion of possibility can play in every aspect of life. Through uplifting stories, parables, and personal anecdotes, the Zanders invite us to become passionate communicators, leaders, and performers whose lives radiate possibility into the world.

Infused with rhythm and melody, Zakes Mda's novel invites you to travel from Lesotho's Mountain Kingdom to the City of Gold through the history of famo.Famo music was born in the drinking dens of migrant mineworkers in Lesotho, where the men would sing to unwind after work, accompanied by the accordion, a drum and sometimes a bass.Meet the boy-child Kheleke, a wandering musician, and his surprising sister, Moliehi. Then sigh with pleasure at being reunited with Toloki, the professional mourner from Ways of Dying, and his beloved Noria.Passionate and ambitious, Boy-child is a weaver of songs, and his own story is intertwined with the incredible yet true social history of the music: the Time of the Concertina and the Accordion, the wars of the famo gangs, and the battle for control of illegal mines.The end is always a journey — and what a journey this is!

In the film The Piano, writer/director Jane Campion created a story so original and powerful.This novel stands independent of the film, exploring the mysteries of Ada's muteness, the secret of her daughter's conception, the reason for her strange marriage and the past lives of Baines and Stewart.

An accomplished concert pianist, Richard received standing ovations from audiences all over the world in awe of his rare combination of emotional resonance and flawless technique. That was eight months ago.Richard now has ALS, and his entire right arm is paralyzed. His fingers are impotent, still, devoid of possibility. The loss of his hand feels like a death, a loss of true love, a divorce — his divorce.He knows his left arm will go next.Three years ago, Karina removed their framed wedding picture from the living room wall and hung a mirror there instead. But she still hasn’t moved on. Karina is paralyzed by excuses and fear, stuck in an unfulfilling life as a piano teacher, afraid to pursue the path she abandoned as a young woman, blaming Richard and their failed marriage for all of it.When Richard becomes increasingly paralyzed and is no longer able to live on his own, Karina becomes his reluctant caretaker. As Richard’s muscles, voice, and breath fade, both he and Karina try to reconcile their past before it’s too late.

Daniel J. Levitin reveals music’s role in the evolution of human culture in this thought-provoking book.He identifies six fundamental song functions or types—friendship, joy, comfort, religion, knowledge, and love—then shows how each in its own way has enabled the social bonding necessary for human culture and society to evolve. He shows, in effect, how these “six songs” work in our brains to preserve the emotional history of our lives and species.Dr. Levitin combines cutting-edge scientific research from his music cognition lab at McGill University and work in an array of related fields; his own sometimes hilarious experiences in the music business; and illuminating interviews with musicians such as Sting and David Byrne, as well as conductors, anthropologists, and evolutionary biologists.The World in Six Songs is ultimately a revolution in our understanding of how human nature evolved—right up to the iPod.Endorsements“Will leave you awestruck.” — The New York Times

More than fifty years ago, John Coltrane drew the twelve musical notes in a circle and connected them by straight lines, forming a five-pointed star. Inspired by Einstein, Coltrane put physics and geometry at the core of his music.Physicist and jazz musician Stephon Alexander follows suit, using jazz to answer physics' most vexing questions about the past and future of the universe. Following the great minds that first drew the links between music and physics—a list including Pythagoras, Kepler, Newton, Einstein, and Rakim—The Jazz of Physics reveals that the ancient poetic idea of the "Music of the Spheres," taken seriously, clarifies confounding issues in physics.The Jazz of Physics will fascinate and inspire anyone interested in the mysteries of our universe, music, and life itself.

Whether you load your iPod with Bach or Bono, music has a significant role in your life—even if you never realized it. Why does music evoke such powerful moods? The answers are at last becoming clear, thanks to revolutionary neuroscience and the emerging field of evolutionary psychology. Both a cutting-edge study and a tribute to the beauty of music itself, This Is Your Brain on Music unravels a host of mysteries that affect everything from pop culture to our understanding of human nature, including:• Are our musical preferences shaped in utero?• Is there a cutoff point for acquiring new tastes in music?• What do PET scans and MRIs reveal about the brain’s response to music?• Is musical pleasure different from other kinds of pleasure?This Is Your Brain on Music explores cultures in which singing is considered an essential human function, patients who have a rare disorder that prevents them from making sense of music, and scientists studying why two people may not have the same definition of pitch. At every turn, this provocative work unlocks deep secrets about how nature and nurture forge a uniquely human obsession.

World-renowned soprano and arts/health advocate Renée Fleming curates a collection of essays from leading scientists, creative arts therapists, educators, healthcare providers and artists about the powerful impacts of music and the arts on health and the human experience.A compelling and growing body of research has shown music and arts therapies to be effective tools for addressing a widening array of conditions, from providing pain relief to enhancing speech recovery after stroke or traumatic brain injury through singing, to improving mobility of individuals with Parkinson’s disease using rhythm.In Music and Mind, Renée Fleming draws upon her own experience as an advocate to showcase the breadth of this booming field, inviting leading experts to share their discoveries. In addition to describing therapeutic benefits, the book explores evolution, brain function, childhood development, and technology as applied to arts and health.Much of this area of study is relatively new, made possible by recent advances in brain imaging, and supported by the National Institutes of Health, major hospitals, and universities. This work is sparking an explosion of public interest in the arts and health sector.Fleming has presented on this material in over fifty cities across North America, Europe, and Asia, collaborating with leading researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners.With essays from known musicians, writers, and artists, as well as leading neuroscientists, Music and Mind is a groundbreaking book and the perfect introduction and overview of this exciting new field.

When it comes to how societies commemorate their own distant dreams and catastrophes, we often think of books, archives, or memorials carved from stone. But in Time's Echo, Jeremy Eichler makes a revelatory case for the power of music as culture's memory, an art form uniquely capable of carrying forward meaning from the past. Eichler shows how four towering composers — Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, Benjamin Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich — lived through the era of the Second World War and the Holocaust and later transformed their experiences into deeply moving works of music, scores that carry forward the echoes of lost time. A lyrical narrative full of insight and compassion, this book deepens how we think about the legacies of war, the presence of the past, and the profound possibilities of art in our lives today.A remarkable and stirring account of how music acts as a witness to history and a medium of cultural memory in the post-Holocaust world.EndorsementsShortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2023Profoundly moving. — Edmund de WaalA work of searching scholarship, acute critical observation, philosophical heft, and deep feeling. — Alex RossA rare extraordinarily powerful — magisterial, meticulously rich and unexpected, deeply affecting and human. — Philippe Sands

Oliver Sacks' compassionate tales of people struggling to adapt to different neurological conditions have fundamentally changed the way we think of our own minds. In Musicophilia, he examines the powers of music through the individual experiences of patients, musicians and everyday people — those struck by affliction, unusual talent and even, in one case, by lightning — to show not only that music occupies more areas of our brain than language does, but also that it can torment, calm, organize and heal.Endorsements'A humane discourse on the fragility of our minds, of the bodies that give rise to them, and of the world they create for us. This book is filled with wonders' — Daily Telegraph

On Easter day, 1939, at Marian Anderson's epochal concert on the Washington Mall, David Strom, a German Jewish émigré scientist, meets Delia Daley, a young Philadelphia Negro studying to be a singer. Their mutual love of music draws them together, and—against all odds and better judgment—they marry. They vow to raise their children beyond time, beyond identity, steeped in song. But their three children must survive America's brutal here and now. Jonah, Joseph, and Ruth grow up during the Civil Rights era, come of age in the violent 1960s, and live out adulthood in the racially retrenched late century. Jonah, the eldest, "whose voice could make heads of state repent," follows a life in his parents' beloved classical music. Ruth, the youngest, chooses a militant activism and repudiates the white culture her brother represents. Joseph, the middle child and the narrator of this generational tale, struggles to remain connected to them both.A magnificent, multifaceted novel about a supremely gifted — and divided — family, set against the backdrop of postwar America The Time of Our Singing is a story of self-invention, allegiance, race, cultural ownership, the compromised power of music, and the tangled loops of time that rewrite all belonging.

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honour of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxane Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerised the international guests with her singing.It is a perfect evening — until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers.A poignant, and at times very funny, novel.EndorsementsWinner of The Women's Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

The last live broadcast on Polish Radio, on September 23, 1939, was Chopin's Nocturne in C# Minor, played by a young pianist named Wladyslaw Szpilman, until his playing was interrupted by German shelling. It was the same piece and the same pianist when broadcasting was resumed six years later. The Pianist is Szpilman's account of the years in between, of the death and cruelty inflicted on the Jews of Warsaw and on Warsaw itself, related with a dispassionate restraint borne of shock. Szpilman, now 88, has not looked at his description since he wrote it in 1946 (the same time as Primo Levi's If This Is a Man?), because it is too personally painful. The rest of us have no such excuse.Szpilman's family were deported to Treblinka, where they were exterminated; he survived only because a music-loving policeman recognised him. This was only the first in a series of fatefully lucky escapes that littered his life as he hid among the rubble and corpses of the Warsaw Ghetto, growing thinner and hungrier, yet condemned to live. Ironically it was a German officer, Wilm Hosenfeld, who saved Szpilman's life by bringing food and an eiderdown to the derelict ruin where he discovered him. Hosenfeld died seven years later in a Stalingrad labour camp, but portions of his diary, reprinted here, tell of his outraged incomprehension of the madness and evil he witnessed, thereby establishing an effective counterpoint to ground the nightmarish vision of the pianist in a desperate reality. Szpilman originally published his account in Poland in 1946, but it was almost immediately withdrawn by Stalin's Polish minions as it unashamedly described collaborations by Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Poles and Jews with the Nazis. In 1997 it was published in Germany after Szpilman's son found it on his father's bookcase. This admirably robust translation by Anthea Bell is the first in the English language. There were 3,500,000 Jews in Poland before the Nazi occupation; after it there were 240,000.EndorsementsWladyslaw Szpilman's extraordinary account of his own miraculous survival offers a voice across the years for the faceless millions who lost their lives. — David Vincent

In Herbie Hancock the legendary jazz musician and composer reflects on a thriving career that has spanned seven decades. A true innovator, Hancock has had an enormous influence on both acoustic and electric jazz, R&B and hip-hop, with his ongoing exploration of different musical genres, winning fourteen Grammy awards along the way.From his beginnings as a child prodigy to his work in Miles Davis’s second great quintet; from his innovations as the leader of his own groundbreaking sextet to his collaborations with everyone from Wayne Shorter to Joni Mitchell and Stevie Wonder; Herbie Hancock reveals the method behind Hancock’s undeniable musical genius.Hancock shares his musical influences, colorful behind-the-scenes stories, his long and happy marriage, and how Buddhism inspires him creatively and personally. Honest, enlightening, and as electrifyingly vital as the man who wrote it, Herbie Hancock promises to be an invaluable contribution to jazz literature and a must-read for fans and music lovers.The long-awaited memoir by one of the most influential and beloved musicians of our time

In the glittering and ruthlessly competitive world of opera, Maria Callas is known simply as la divina: the divine one. With her glorious voice, instinctive flair for the dramatic and striking beauty, she's the toast of the grandest opera houses in the world. Yet her fame has been hard won: raised in Nazi-occupied Greece by a mother who mercilessly exploited her, Maria learned early in life how to protect herself.When she meets the fabulously rich shipping magnate, Aristotle Onassis, her isolation melts away. For the first time in her life, she believes she's found a man who sees the woman rather than the legendary soprano. Desperately in love, Onassis introduces her to a life of unbelievable luxury, mixing with celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.And then, suddenly, it's over. The international press announce that Onassis will marry the most famous woman in the world, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, leaving Maria to pick up the pieces.In this remarkable novel, Daisy Goodwin brings to life a woman whose extraordinary talent, unremitting drive and natural chic made her a legend. But it was only in confronting the heartbreak of losing the man she loved that Maria Callas found her true voice.

Arrangements in Blue elegantly honors the life lived completely by—and for—oneself. Inspired by Joni Mitchell’s seminal album Blue, celebrated British poet Amy Key sets out to examine the volatile scales of romantic feeling as she has encountered them: from the low notes of loss and unfulfilled desire—punctuated by sharp, discordant feelings of jealousy and regret—to the deep harmony of friendship and the highs defined by sexual attraction and self-realization. Key celebrates the bliss of sleeping in an empty bed, the intimate energy required for cooking solo, and the transformative power of traveling alone—especially to the sea. Written with the exquisite finesse of a poet, this bold manual for navigating life alone provides an alternative perspective on a shared human experience so rarely explored.

At eight years old, Ricky Ian Gordon pulled The Victor Book of Opera off his piano teacher’s bookshelf, and his world shifted on its axis. Though scandal, sadness, and confusion would shake that world over the next few decades, its polestar remained constant. Music has been the guiding force of Gordon’s life; through it, he has been able not only to survive great sorrow but also to capture the depths of his emotion in song. It is this strength, this technical and visceral genius, that has made him one of our generation’s greatest composers.In Seeing Through, Gordon writes with humor, insight, and incredible candor about his life and a tumultuous youth on Long Island, his artistic collaborations and obsessions, the creation of his compositions (including The Grapes of Wrath, 27, Orpheus and Eurydice, Intimate Apparel, Ellen West, and more), his addictions and the abuses he endured, and the loss of his partner to AIDS and the devastation of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. As Gordon writes of that, “We were, thousands of us, Lazarus. We had to rise from the ashes. We didn’t have to rebuild our lives, we had to build new ones.”Gordon has succeeded in building a remarkable life, as well as a body of work that bears witness to all he survived in the process—one that will endure as a pivotal chapter in America's songbook.The true confessions of a working opera: an exhilarating story of "a life that comes out of chaos."

Jesse Ed Davis shared stages with the greatest music stars of the 1960s and ’70s. His riffs and licks enlivened albums by three of the four Beatles, and recordings by artists as distinct as Eric Clapton, Leonard Cohen, and Cher. But Davis—whose name has been all but lost to the annals of rock ’n’ roll history—was more than just the most versatile session guitarist of the decade. By pairing bright flourishes with soulful melodies, Davis exploded our idea of what rock music could be, and who could make it. Interweaving more than a hundred interviews with legendary peers, bandmates, and family members, Washita Love Child reimagines the Kiowa-Comanche musician’s improbable career, from his childhood in Oklahoma to his first major gig backing rockabilly star Conway Twitty, and from his climactic, dramatic performance at George Harrison’s 1971 Concert for Bangladesh to his tragic demise years later in Los Angeles.The spectacular untold story of the Indigenous guitarist who catapulted to fame backing Taj Mahal, Bob Dylan, and John Lennon amidst the sweeping social transformations of the twentieth century.

‘There are moments in life that are pure, and which seem to hang in the air, unhitched from the everyday world as we know it. Suspended for a few seconds, they float in their own space and time with their own hidden prospects. For want of a better term, we call these moments “magical” and when we remember them they are cloaked in a halo of special meaning.’For 14-year-old Johnny Clegg, hearing Zulu street music, plucked on the strings of a guitar by Charlie Mzila, one evening outside a corner café in Bellevue, Johannesburg, was one such ‘magical’ moment. The success story of Juluka and later Savuka, and the cross-cultural celebration of music, language, story, dance and song that stirred the hearts of millions across the world, is well documented. Their music was the soundtrack to many South Africans’ lives during the turbulent 70s and 80s as the country moved from legislated oppression to democratic freedom. It crossed borders, boundaries and generations, resonating around the world and back again. Less known is the story of how it all began and developed. Scatterling of Africa is that origin story, as Johnny Clegg wrote it and wanted it told. It is the story of how the son of an unconventional mother, grandson of Jewish immigrants, came to realise that identity can be a choice, and home is a place you leave and return to as surely as the seasons change.

When Claire Oppert plays the cello, miracles happen. Children with profound autism, patients in extreme pain and distress, even people on the threshold of death smile, cry, laugh, sing and dance. “When you play, I’m not sick anymore,” one man tells her. “I feel happy, I feel alive.”In The Schubert Treatment, Oppert recounts her remarkable story of healing suffering through music, alongside portraits of the many people she has helped. Born into a family of doctors and artists, Oppert trained as a classical cellist and began playing at a center for autistic youth, where she witnessed how music could connect with even the most difficult-to-reach patients. Later, she began working as an art therapist with people with neurodegenerative diseases and palliative care patients, eventually conducting clinical trials that proved the effect of her “Schubert treatment”: using music as a counter-stimulation to reduce pain and anxiety during stressful procedures.Oppert’s crystalline, lyrical vignettes of the patients whose lives she has touched are punctuated with anecdotes from her own life as a musician, as well as reflections on the meaning of art and the human need for connection and creativity. Compassionate, uplifting, and deeply humane, The Schubert Treatment is a testament to the incredible power of music to heal our bodies, minds, and souls.For readers of Oliver Sacks and Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. A celebrated art therapist plays the cello for patients with autism, neurodegenerative disease and terminal illness—and offers a moving reflection on the extraordinary power of music to enrich our lives, all the way to the very end.

I’ll Love You Forever: Notes from a K-Pop Fan is a smart, poignant, constantly surprising essay collection that considers the collision between stratospherically popular music and our inescapably personal selves. Giaae Kwon explores the influence of K-pop artists, from H.O.T. to Taeyeon to IU to Suga from BTS, and reveals how each one illuminated and shaped her own life.In centering intimate experiences to explore larger cultural topics, this singular work breaks new ground in its consideration of K-pop. I’ll Love You Forever blends the critical with the personal while spanning the history of K-pop from the perspective of a bilingual and bicultural Korean American. Kwon interweaves profiles of different K-pop idols with topics such as Korea’s obsession with academics, its attitudes toward plastic surgery, and female sexuality and desire, among others. Combining insightful critique and adoring analysis, I’ll Love You Forever provides readers with a fuller picture of a culturally and socially complex industry and the machine and heart behind its popularity. Through it all, Kwon offers up the passion of a superfan, finding joy in K-pop along the way.Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror meets Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings in a meditation that blends memoir and cultural criticism to explore how the author’s love affair with K-pop has shaped her sense of self, charting K-pop’s complex coming-of-age through some of its biggest idols.

This work of music journalism is an unforgettable, fascinating, and unexpected account of one of the most performed and beloved songs in pop history—Leonard Cohen’s heartrending “Hallelujah.”How did one obscure song become an international anthem for human triumph and tragedy, a song each successive generation seems to feel they have discovered and claimed as uniquely their own? Celebrated music journalist Alan Light follows the improbable journey of “Hallelujah” straight to the heart of popular culture.Endorsements“Thoughtful and illuminating” — The New York Times

From music journalist and former Spin and Vibe editor-in-chief Alan Light comes a biography of incandescent soul singer and Black Power icon Nina Simone, one of the most influential, provocative, and least understood artists of our time. Drawn from a trove of rare archival footage, audio recordings and interviews (including Simone's remarkable private diaries), this nuanced examination of Nina Simone’s life highlights her musical inventiveness and unwavering quest for equality, while laying bare the personal demons that plagued her from the time of her Jim Crow childhood in North Carolina to her self-imposed exile in Liberia and Paris later in life.Harnessing the singular voice of Miss Simone herself and incorporating candid reflections from those who knew her best, including her only daughter, Light brings us face to face with a legend, examining the very public persona and very private struggles of one of our greatest artists.Inspired by the Netflix documentary What Happened, Miss Simone?, an intimate and vivid look at the legendary life of Nina Simone, the classically trained pianist who evolved into a chart-topping chanteuse and committed civil rights activist.

From the present day back to the dawn of time, from dark caves and murky swamps to open deserts and ocean depths, here is the history of humankind's relationship with music in fifty detective stories.We see a child’s delight in Peru in AD 700, playing with a water-filled pot that chirps like a bird; we shiver with a lonely soldier sending trumpet signals to the next watchtower on Hadrian's Wall; we sway to the stately rhythms of the 64 bells buried in a tomb in China in the 5th century BC. And on this grand tour, we learn that music is part of what makes us human – a way of commemorating our pasts, communicating with others and shaping our lives.Brimming with astonishing insights, Sound Tracks provides an enthralling alternative history of humanity in which the silences of the past are filled with a glorious treasure hoard of vanished sounds and voices.A transporting voyage of archaeological discovery, Sound Tracks unearths instruments from around the world and across time, releasing the past's musical secrets for the first time.Endorsements‘A thrilling journey into the sonic richness of human experience’ — Philip Ball, author of The Music Instinct‘A magical book’ — Francis Pryor, author of Britain BC‘Piles revelation upon revelation to shed a completely new perspective on the tools we use for making music’ — Norman Lebrecht, author of Why Beethoven‘Lawson has brilliantly conjured up the sounds of 30,000 years of human history’ — David Abulafia, Professor Emeritus of Mediterranean History

Drawing on over one hundred interviews with industry insiders, former Spotify employees, and musicians, Mood Machine takes us to the inner workings of today’s highly consolidated record business, showing what has changed as music has become increasingly playlisted, personalized, and autoplayed.Building on her years of wide-ranging reporting on streaming, music journalist Liz Pelly details the consequences of the Spotify model by examining both sides of what the company calls its two-sided marketplace: the listeners who pay with their dollars and data, and the musicians who provide the material powering it all. The music business is notoriously opaque, but here Pelly lifts the veil on major stories like streaming services filling popular playlists with low-cost stock music and the rise of new payola-like practices.For all of the inequities exacerbated by streaming, Pelly also finds hope in chronicling the artist-led fight for better models, pointing toward what must be done collectively to revalue music and create sustainable systems. A timely exploration of a company that has become synonymous with music, Mood Machine will change the way you think about and listen to music.An unsparing investigation into Spotify’s origins and influence on music, weaving unprecedented reporting with incisive cultural criticism, illuminating how streaming is reshaping music for listeners and artists alike.

From Jeff Beck to Ray Davies, Jon Bon Jovi to Kevin Ayers, Kate Mossman has long fostered an interest in male musicians of a certain age.Why is it that when I meet them, I feel something ignite inside me? What is this strange connection — to feel so excited, yet so at ease? And how is it that in the presence of a wrinkly rock star twice my age, I sometimes feel like I'm meeting... me?Featuring nineteen long-form profiles lovingly constructed for The Word magazine and the New Statesman, Men of a Certain Age chronicles the lives of some of the biggest rock stars of our time, including Brian May, Gene Simmons, Terence Trent D'Arby, Johnny Rotten, and Nick Cave.The book is a meditation on the powerful archetype of the ageing rock star, but it is also a personal story of music and obsession, and of the deep unconscious projections at play in our relationships with the famous people who most capture our hearts. As Kate travels 5,000 miles to try to find Glen Campbell, and to the depths of the Cornish countryside for a rendezvous with Roger Taylor, will she finally unravel the roots of her obsession with the elder statesmen of rock?Endorsements"Fascinating, funny and tender." — Adam Buxton"My favourite writer and interviewer." — Jude Rogers"If Kate Mossman's name is on it, then I want to read it." — Pete Paphides

Scrutinized in life, mythologized in death, Tupac Shakur remains a subject of immense cultural significance and speculation nearly thirty years after his murder. Despite a multitude of books, documentaries, and even a feature film, much about Tupac’s story remains shrouded and misunderstood. Like many icons who died tragically young, Tupac the man has long been obscured—his edges sanded down, his complexity numbed—by the competing agendas that surround his legacy.In Only God Can Judge Me, accomplished biographer and cultural historian Jeff Pearlman tackles his most nuanced subject, telling the definitive story of Tupac Shakur in unprecedented depth. In this authoritative look at Tupac’s life, Pearlman skillfully recreates West Coast hip hop in all its glory, going inside Death Row Records and on the sets of movies like Juice and Poetic Justice to offer the most clear-eyed rendering to date of the man who still casts a shadow over modern hip hop. But more than just a biography of a complicated figure, Only God Can Judge Me also captures the time and place in which Tupac rose, a singular moment in music history when West Coast hip hop became a phenomenon and transformed popular music.Featuring nearly seven hundred original interviews and never-before-published details from every corner of Tupac’s life, the result offers a truly singular portrait of one of modern pop culture’s most towering figures. Guided by the voices of those who knew and lived life alongside him, Only God Can Judge Me captures the layers of a man who, even thirty years after his death, remains as elusive as ever.EndorsementsNew York Times bestselling author Jeff Pearlman turns his sharp eye and meticulous storytelling to one of pop culture’s most enduring and enigmatic figures—Tupac Shakur—presenting the definitive retelling of his life, complete with explosive new details.

Del Amitri frontman Justin Currie reflects on life as a touring musician in the shadow of his life changing Parkinson’s diagnosis.It’s 2022 and we join Justin at the doctor’s office, looking down the barrel of a Parkinson’s diagnosis. After concerned fans noticed a tremor in his hand, Currie sought the medical advice which led him to the discovery that would throw his future into uncertainty.The immediate fallout of his diagnosis is laid bare in Currie’s candid, stream of consciousness voice. A voice that is also by turns poetic, self-deprecating and darkly humorous across a series of diary entries that capture Justin’s innermost feelings — part travelogue, part confessional.Following a coming to terms with the situation whilst on tour in the U.S, the second half of the story joins Currie in 2024, supporting Simple Minds on tour with Del Amitri. Anger, heartbreak and a looming sense of finality concoct a terse relationship between what once was and what may never be. Yet, page after page, what prevails is the achingly perfect timing of his acerbic wit.The Tremolo Diaries is a beautiful and unique meditation on illness and aging. It is a twilight years reflection on band life in the 21st Century. It’s a travelogue around the world’s art galleries, parks, bars and sites of natural beauty. And most importantly, it is about love and friendship, adversity and courage, life and loss.In a first-of-its-kind exploration of Parkinson’s by a multi-platinum selling musician, The Tremolo Diaries looks the dramatic irony of Currie’s affliction in the eye, puts down the guitar, and returns the needle to the start of the song.EndorsementsA Top 5 Sunday Times bestsellerMusic Book of the Year — The HeraldTop 5 Music Book of the Year — The GuardianMusic Book of the Year — Classic PopTop 5 Book of the Year 2025 — MojoTop 3 Book of the Year 2025 — Uncut"A latter-day Lear. A truly remarkable book" — John Niven, The Spectator"Might just be the finest music memoir of recent years" — Independent"A minor masterpiece" — Classic Pop"Full of life and joy and copious swearing" — The Herald