What makes reading better?
Maybe a soft seat to curl up in, or to relax and stretch out. Maybe a cool beverage, or a steamy-hot one nearby. A fireplace – this time of year, that’s always a good idea, and you’ll want a bright light. If you’re the kind of person who needs tunes to complete this picture, then read on: there are lots of books out this fall that will make you very happy…
Music is renowned for something unique and interesting: hear the first few notes of a song you know, and it’ll take you back to a moment in your life. In “World Within a Song” by writer-musician Jeff Tweedy (Dutton, $26.00), you’ll read about fifty songs, the memories they recall for Tweedy, and how they influenced his life.
Why does music connect us, take us places we’ve been before, make us feel nostalgic? Have the opinions of other music lovers pushed you into trying a kind of music you’d never heard before? What songs take you back and make you recall memories you’d nearly forgotten? The chapters in this conversation-starting book will have you thinking about those things.
First, there was plastic, then vinyl, then reel-to-reel, then 8-track cartridges. Music fans know what comes next on the timeline, and “High Bias: The Distorted History of the Cassette Tape” by Marc Masters (The University of North Carolina Press, $20.00) pulls it all together.
Don’t think that it’s only about cassette tapes themselves, though. This book looks at a corner of music history and how cassettes almost totally replaced all the formats that came before them – at least for awhile. It’s also about the popularity of cassettes, the convenience of them, and why they were, in a way, makers and markers of our culture. If you ever spent a weekend making a
mix tape for your crush, recording songs off the radio, pretending to be a DJ, or swapping recordings with friends, this is a book you’ll want to read.
And finally, if you love the history of music, you know that a song sometimes is way more than just a song. In “Rise Up and Sing! Power, Protest, and Activism in Music” by Andrea Warner, illustrated by Louise Reimer (Greystone Kids, $26.95) is a book to share with your favorite teenage music fan.
What do Bob Dylan and Joan Baez have in common with Billy Eilish and Lil Nas X? Did protest songs in the 1960s actually make a difference? Can music pull together a community, and can it make change? Protest songs have been around for decades; is today’s music as effective in starting a revolution? The answers to those questions is in this fascinating look at a social history that has music in its center.
If these books just aren’t enough for you, be sure to check with your favorite bookseller or librarian and ask for more. The shelves are full of music biographies, histories, and books about record collecting and music-making for all ages. Grab one. Doesn’t that sound good?
