This is Your Brain on Music: Understanding a Human Obsession

From the insightful mind behind The Changing Mind and The Organized Mind comes Daniel Levitin's This Is Your Brain On Music, a New York Times bestseller that delves deep into our enduring fascination with sound. Levitin, a neuroscientist, psychologist, and internationally acclaimed author, poses a fundamental question: "What do the music of Bach, Depeche Mode and John Cage fundamentally have in common?" His answer is compelling: music isn't just a pleasant pastime; it's an intrinsic part of human nature, perhaps even more foundational to our species than language itself.

Levitin embarks on a fascinating exploration, tracing the role of music in human evolution and revealing how our musical tastes begin to take shape even before we're born. He expertly elucidates the neurological underpinnings of why music can evoke such profound emotional responses, from the soaring joy of a favourite melody to the melancholic pull of a minor key. From Mozart's genius to the cultural phenomenon of The Beatles, Levitin seamlessly blends scientific rigour with engaging prose, offering a new lens through which to understand the power of music.

As Sting aptly observes, "Music seems to have an almost wilful, evasive quality, defying simple explanation, so that the more we find out, the more there is to know . . . Daniel Levitin's book is an eloquent and poetic exploration of this paradox." Indeed, Levitin tackles the elusive nature of music with both scientific precision and a clear passion for his subject. Classic FM magazine rightly suggests that after reading this book, "You'll never hear music in the same way again."

Levitin doesn't present music as a frivolous modern indulgence. Instead, as the Literary Review highlights, he argues convincingly that "music is not a decadent modern diversion but something of fundamental importance to the history of human development." This Is Your Brain On Music offers nothing less than a profound and accessible new framework for understanding music and, in doing so, gaining a deeper understanding of ourselves. It's a thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable read for anyone curious about the science behind the songs that shape our lives.