Interim Review: This Is Your Brain on Music

This is going to make me sound like a snob, but it has to be said: I do not understand how this book ever became a bestseller in the U.S.  Same goes for Guns, Germs, and Steel for that matter.  They are too bloody hard.

They wouldn't be too hard for most of the people I know; I mean that they'd be too hard for Joe Public, and a fair few Joe Publics have to buy a book for it to hit the New York Times bestseller list, which both of these did.  I suppose you could make the argument that people wouldn't have to read them, just buy them, and that's true.  But I can't believe that ALL of those people bought the books and NONE of them read the books.  So either people in the U.S. are much smarter than I give them credit for, or so few books are being bought that a relatively small number of science nerds can throw off one of the most important measures of English-language book success.  I'm not sure which of those ideas is more upsetting to my world view.

Look, these books aren't unfathomable, and I don't want to put anyone off reading them.  But neither of them is the 'pop science' you might expect from such big sellers.  This Is Your Brain... is easier reading than Guns..., but not substantially; I think the difference is more down to the scope of the books rather than the level of the content.  I'll talk more about this in the full review, though.

In other news, my Christmas books have all arrived, and I've had to put the box on a very high shelf to keep me from diving right into them.  Must resist!

XOXO