abookolive's review against another edition
3.0
This book is an interesting mixture of travel writing, Russian history, and music as the author travels across Siberia ostensibly to locate different pianos -once highly fashionable and popular in Russia - that have now disappeared. Along the way, she gives the history of the regions of Siberia to which she's traveling - some of these areas (notably Yekaterinburg) are very historically significant - and tells the stories of how music (particularly piano music) influenced these regions and Russia as a whole.
Let me reveal my bias right away, especially for anyone who doesn't know me or my background: Russia is kind of my "thing." I studied Russia extensively in college, I briefly traveled there, and I've continued my "studies" through lots and lots of reading. Given that interest, of course I was into a lot of the information in this book. But that also reveals something quite important about this book: it's about Russia far more than it is about music. Depending on who you are and what you're looking to get out of the book, I think that'll have an impact on how much you end up enjoying it.
Biases aside, the execution of the book is wanting organization. The sections are organized by region and generally move chronologically throughout Russian history, starting with how piano music got hot in the cold climates, then moving toward how the arts were received by the new Soviet regime. As I got further into the book, I completely forgot what the author's central purpose was - the one she stated at the start of the book: to find some of these lost pianos. She would mention it here and there, but there was so much peripheral information that the central goal was lost in the drift.
The main issue with this book is one I've been seeing a lot of as I've allowed more recently-released nonfiction to dominate my reading over the past couple of years: this story would have made for a fabulous extended article in a magazine (probably a travel magazine), but the added information padded onto it to make it the length of a book muddled the core purpose.
Let me reveal my bias right away, especially for anyone who doesn't know me or my background: Russia is kind of my "thing." I studied Russia extensively in college, I briefly traveled there, and I've continued my "studies" through lots and lots of reading. Given that interest, of course I was into a lot of the information in this book. But that also reveals something quite important about this book: it's about Russia far more than it is about music. Depending on who you are and what you're looking to get out of the book, I think that'll have an impact on how much you end up enjoying it.
Biases aside, the execution of the book is wanting organization. The sections are organized by region and generally move chronologically throughout Russian history, starting with how piano music got hot in the cold climates, then moving toward how the arts were received by the new Soviet regime. As I got further into the book, I completely forgot what the author's central purpose was - the one she stated at the start of the book: to find some of these lost pianos. She would mention it here and there, but there was so much peripheral information that the central goal was lost in the drift.
The main issue with this book is one I've been seeing a lot of as I've allowed more recently-released nonfiction to dominate my reading over the past couple of years: this story would have made for a fabulous extended article in a magazine (probably a travel magazine), but the added information padded onto it to make it the length of a book muddled the core purpose.
eloisedoesread's review against another edition
4.0
What an absolutely fascinating read. I am not surprised many people who Sophy Roberts encountered thought her quest a little odd on her many trips to find pianos in Siberia. This book was an interesting way of exploring the last 200 years of Siberian history. Something felt missing throughout the book which she brought in the last chapter. I would recommend this book for a thoughtful, yet brief, history. I am not a musician so perhaps not the target audience but I really did enjoy this book.
pipn_t's review against another edition
adventurous
sad
medium-paced
3.5
This was a good book and an interesting read, but I felt like either the author or the editor decided to cut things - it felt like some of the stories and historical facts needed more context and detail, in a few cases, so much that I felt it was doing a disservice to history & the readers by not elaborating. (For example, bringing up the Holodimir but not explaining that this was an entirely man-made famine. Also, mentioning that tenor Kozin was exiled to Siberia on charges of sodomy without telling us anything to give us a sense of what life was like for lgbt+ people at the time, nor even giving us a sense of Kozin as a person.) I felt like the writer also sometimes bent the narrative to the story a little too much, Shostakovich’s story was concatenated in a way that unfortunately left out a lot that I felt might have been interesting and relevant to the picture the author seemed to be painting, while showing a more accurate timeline too.
It did not feel like the book had the strongest narrative running through it, but the stories were well told, and all the individuals in the book were interesting. It was an engaging story and a different angle with which to view the subject, and I really enjoyed reading a book which appreciated the importance the arts can have in people’s lives even (or maybe especially) in times of great hardship and struggle. All in all, a good book, I enjoyed the read despite it feeling like it needed to be a longer story.
It did not feel like the book had the strongest narrative running through it, but the stories were well told, and all the individuals in the book were interesting. It was an engaging story and a different angle with which to view the subject, and I really enjoyed reading a book which appreciated the importance the arts can have in people’s lives even (or maybe especially) in times of great hardship and struggle. All in all, a good book, I enjoyed the read despite it feeling like it needed to be a longer story.
lizstaley's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
I really enjoyed this and enjoyed learning about the history and culture of Siberia through the lens of historical pianos.