Reviews

You Are the Music: How Music Reveals What it Means to be Human by Victoria Peterburgsky-Williamson

tigercub58's review against another edition

2.0

High hopes starting this book but it's mainly a long list of endless studies and research. Some were by the author herself but mainly others which more often than not resulted in no conclusive evidence. More of an attempt at an academic paper which failed to hit the right note with me!

cazxxx's review against another edition

informative reflective slow-paced

3.0

brian_the_reader's review against another edition

1.0

I debated giving this two stars, but couldn't bring myself to do it. One could argue that nothing is wrong with this book. A good retort might be the lack of serial commas, confusing anecdote with data, and abandoning the scientific method in the final chapter are indeed wrong.

While these things are all true, the core problem is the signal to noise ratio. For readers who have read any books (or articles!) on these topics, nothing new will be presented. For readers who haven't yet delved into this field, they will be presented with only a surface dusting of references to studies, with an outsized percentage of the words dedicated to set up and restating previous points.

This book would have been better as a series of three short blog posts.

I am fascinated by this topic and will look for other books in the field.

emsterino19's review against another edition

4.0

I really enjoyed this book. It is very well-written and an easy read. I learned a lot about many aspects of music and life. I recommend this book for anyone who has a career in music to the average person who just likes to listen to it! I also recommend it for anyone who is interested in how we operate as people in general. Great book!

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.