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£22.00
In 1943, German SS officers in charge of Auschwitz-Birkenau ordered that an orchestra should be formed among the female prisoners. While still living amid the most brutal and dehumanising of circumstances, they were also made to give weekly concerts for Nazi officers, and individual members were sometimes summoned to give solo performances of an officer’s favourite piece of music. What role could music play in a death camp? What was the effect on those women who owed their survival to their participation in a Nazi propaganda project? And how did it feel to be forced to provide solace to the perpetrators of a genocide that claimed the lives of their family and friends? Award-winning historian Anne Sebba traces these tangled questions of deep moral complexity with sensitivity and care.
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£25.00
London, 1741. An actress mired in scandal plans her escape from an abusive husband. A penniless sea captain sets out to rescue the city’s abandoned infants. An African Muslim and former captive in the colonies becomes a celebrity. A grieving political dissident seeks release from his torment. And a great composer to kings – George Frideric Handel – now ill and straining to keep an audience’s attention, faces a decision that will secure his place in history. Evoking a pivotal moment at the birth of modernity, a time of fear, conspiracy and uprising, and featuring some of the most unusual and brilliant personalities of the eighteenth century, ‘Every Valley’ is a resonant story of hope in the darkness and the entangled lives that shaped a masterpiece.
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£20.00
There are countless books on music with much analysis given to musicians, bands, eras and/or genres. But rarely does a book delve into what’s going on inside us when we listen. Michel Faber explores two big questions: how we listen to music and why we listen to music. To answer these he considers biology, age, illness, the notion of ‘cool’, commerce, the dichotomy between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ taste and, through extensive interviews with musicians, unlocks some surprising answers.
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£8.99
With exquisite illustrations from the incomparable Lizzy Steward – winner of the Waterstone’s Book Prize - A Dancer’s Dream is a glorious retelling of The Nutcracker, and the perfect Christmas gift.
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£20.00
Despite being unable to play an instrument, Susan Rogers became an extraordinarily successful record producer – and certainly one of the most successful women record producers in history – because of her ability to listen. (She was an engineer on Prince’s ‘When Doves Cry’). ‘This is What It Sounds Like’ distils a lifetime’s expertise as a producer and an award-winning professor with a PhD in cognitive neuroscience, to present a new theory of listening for everyday music fans. Each person has a unique identity as a listener, she explains, determined by seven influential dimensions of musical listening: authenticity, realism, novelty, melody, lyrics, rhythm and timbre.
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£12.99
‘The Musical Human’ takes us on an exhilarating journey across the ages – from Bach to BTS and back – to explore the vibrant relationship between music and the human species. With insights from a wealth of disciplines, world-leading musicologist Michael Spitzer renders a global history of music on the widest possible canvas, looking at music in our everyday lives; music in world history; and music in evolution, from insects to apes, humans to AI. Through this journey we begin to understand how music is central to the distinctly human experiences of cognition, feeling and even biology, both widening and closing the evolutionary gaps between ourselves and animals in surprising ways. The book boldly puts the case that music is the most important thing we ever did; it is a fundamental part of what makes us human.
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£9.99
Ludwig van Beethoven: to some, the greatest ever composer of Western classical music. Yet his life remains shrouded in myths, and the image persists of him as an eccentric genius shaking his fist. In this book, Oxford professor Laura Tunbridge cuts through the noise in a refreshing way – with each chapter focusing on a period of his life, a piece of music and a revealing theme, from family to friends, heroism to liberty.
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£14.99
Written by Katherine Woodfine, author of The Sinclair Mysteries, and illustrated by the incomparable Lizzy Steward, winner of the Waterstone’s Book Prize, A Dancer’s Dream is a sumptuous retelling of The Nutcracker. With Stunningly high-spec design, including two foils and a jacketed hardback, this irresistible book is the perfect gift for all would-be ballerinas everywhere and the perfect Christmas gift!Â
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£20.00
In his energetic tour through 30,000 years of music, from prehistoric instruments to pop, Howard Goodall does away with stuffy biographies, unhelpful labels and tired terminology and leads us through the story of music as it really happened, so that each musical innovation strikes us with its original force.
Dr Seuss A Classic Treasury 
Just Kids 
Beloved 
