Further to the "Books" thread in the cafe I thought it would be interesting to share recommendations and thoughts and whatever on music related books... I know I love it when my love of reading and music is combined in a good novel or an interesting non-fiction book about music!

Off the top of my brain, my favourite non-fiction book has to be Eloise Ristad's "Soprano On Her Head" - which is not, contrary to what the title might suggest, primarily about singing, but largely applicable to all musicians and really interesting, funny, entertaining and helpful.

On the fiction side, I find Vikram Seth's "An Equal Music" has astounding insight for a non-musician, and have just finished "The Cellist of Sarajevo", which manages to create a powerful atmosphere surrounding the eponymous cellist despite the book not being mainly about music... really good read, though very moving.

I'm also eagerly awaiting a couple of books I ordered from Waterstones with some vouchers I was given, but can't remember the titles off the top of my head... typical...

So... anyone else?

This sounds good - will add it to my list of Books I Must Read!

I'm just finishing Music and Silence by Rose Tremain, about an English lutenist working (orchestrally) for the King of Denmark. It's a good read.

Best musical book last year was A Genius in the Family by Piers and Hilary du Pré, about their famed sister, Jacqueline, and on which the film was based. That was an eye-opener! I couldn't put it down.

The Ristad is great - it's been recommended a lot on here, if you do a search you'll read loads of opinions (mostly good, though not everyone gets a lot out of it).

I've read "Genius" several times - it is absorbing and fascinating isn't it?

Music & Silence sounds interesting, will look out for it.

Just found a thread in the Adult Learners forum about Best Musicianship books, which may be a useful adjunct

edit: just realised the wonderful skylark summarised all the books mentioned in that thread on the first post - wonderful - so I really have to recommend it VERY highly, as you don't even have to trawl through to see what's been mentioned and whether you might find an opinion on a book you are wondering about!

When I clicked on that I got to something on YouTube! Perhaps Firefox just took a wrong turning.

I just bought "an Equal Music" from a 2nd-hand shop (along with £5 worth of music ) so am glad to hear it's good - look forward to reading it when my mum returns it!
And, "The Cellist of Sarajevo" was given to my mum for her bday this year so it's on my list! Thanks Sarah - i'm now really looking forward to reading them!

As for others, i've only read a couple - got mid-way through "your brain on music" (cant remember author) but haven't had time to finish it. Seems v.good though.
Also, Darren Henley's "The Friendly Guide to Music" is good - only part-way through that. Sometimes it can seems a bit simple but have to read it for summer-reading music work.

Nice thread by the way

I hope you enjoy them too, Piello!


Bah

D'oh - I think I didn't copy the link properly

This one should work!

There are loads more ideas for music-related books in this thread as well

Thanks skyers - I thought there must be one but could I find it? Course not!

If anyone has any good recommendations especially for fiction+music books please say so - I'm not so into historical novels, but have adored things like An Equal Music and similar that combine good fiction with a strong musical thread - music and fiction, two of my favourite things combined

Sorry but I have to disagree with you about An Equal Music. I took it on holiday and even in a relaxed frame of mind I couldn't get through it. I found it rather insipid with the most obvious characterisations and dialogue possible.
I did however read a fairly decent music related novel called Canone Inverso by Paolo Maurensig about a down and out but gifted violinist. I've also been recommended Evening in the Palace of Reason by James Gaines.

A must read is A Life on the Road - Julian Bream!

First music related novel I read, or more a sort of self help book and I often refer to it when teaching is Barry Green's Inner Game of music. Absolutely loved it Then I went onto read another of his books, The Mastery of Music, which I found quite easy to put down and forget about.

Right now I'm working my way through Grout and Palisca's 'A history of western music' - Unless you are a geeky 3rd year music student , this may be considered rather heavy reading!!

I don't really remember the characters in AEM much to be honest, but I found the characterisation of the music (for want of a better way of putting it) to be very vivid - that is what stuck, for me.

Not working on the final assignment for the OU course AA317 are you by any chance? I think all the students on the OU forum would be very interested in this thread!

I've really enjoyed Jessica Duchen's books. I first came across her 2 years ago, when she gave a reading from "Alicia's Gift" at the Manchester Piano Concerto Competition. I then bought the book, which I really enjoyed, & have since read her other books - all very good.

I've read many music-related books and learnt a great deal from many of them. I've especially loved Cyril Smith's autobiography & I've recently been fascinated by Lang Lang's. The sheer amount of practice & the determination he showed from very early childhood is staggering.

is that the music and lit one? Nope, but if this thread helps people who are then that's cool

Been reading John Holt's "Never too late" this afternoon, for lack of energy to do anything else , and that's left me feeling a little frustrated that I am useless today but very inspired about both teaching and learning.

Will check her out Bev - thanks

I got a couple of news books recently...

How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and why you should care) - I was a little disappointed to be honest. Interesting, and I am going to experiment with the conclusions drawn in the book, but I didn't at all enjoy the author's style of writing (I think he was trying to hard at points to be amusing and chatty, and failed, which is worse than being too dry in some ways) and at times it felt (somewhat unnecessarily) like a rant, whilst actually bombarding me with a lot of mathematical information that went over my head and relatively little practical information to make me go "Oh, I see!"

He seems to me to be too interested in getting the reader to agree with him rather than in presenting the information in a way which really helps one to understand the whys and wherefores.

I also really disliked the continuous mini-bios of various people throughout the book - they were interesting enough in and of themselves, but some of them were only tangentially relevant and they were badly formatted so that they kept breaking up the flow of the text, which I found very frustrating.

Overall, I'm quite glad I bought it on a book token, as I would have been very annoyed to spend a "real" tenner on it... interesting, but could have been better. I'll read it again when I have a less tired brain and hope to be more impressed - I'm aware that at the moment I'm probably not in the best frame of mind to absorb all the information. I did learn a few things, and feel I have more understanding of the issues at hand, but I do think it could have been a better and more informative book, and a more engaging read.

The one I have really, really enjoyed is Oliver Sacks' "Musicophilia". I read a few bad reviews and worried that I would be similarly disappointed, but so far, having read just over a quarter of the book, I have been absolutely absorbed and fascinated. Some of his case studies and anecdotes offer explanations and reasons behind the maladies, others are wholly mysterious but possibly even more intriguing for all that. A really really good buy.

A book which I *might* have previously recommended elsewhere on the forum, but deserves another mention is "Indivisible by Four: A String Quartet in Pursuit of Harmony" by Arnold Steinhardt - it's a biography of the Guarneri Quartet really. It's non-fiction but is just a brilliant read

Sounds intriguing, Fibi!

Just stumbled across this thread about musical novels...