Interview with Michael Spitzer, author of The Musical Human: A History of Life on Earth
Michael Spitzer, author of The Musical Human: A History of Life on Earth recommends a great set of books! Before jumping into the interview, please check out Michael's book:
Review from Book Depository:
165 million years ago saw the birth of rhythm.
66 million years ago came the first melody.
40 thousand years ago Homo sapiens created the first musical instrument.
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The Musical Human: A History of Life on Earth
Today music fills our lives. How we have created, performed and listened to this music throughout history has defined what our species is and how we understand who we are. Yet music is an overlooked part of our origin story.
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.
Buy On:
Book Depository €25.42
Waterstones £26.99
Wordery $29.33
Q. Do you have a favourite smart thinking book (and why that book)?
It's a classic - Charles Darwin's The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Less well-known than his Origin of Species, but just as radical in its way. It argues - totally convincingly - that humans share an emotional world with other animals. This idea was eclipsed by 20th-century behaviourism (humans are just lab rats) but has recently been vindicated. Wittgenstein was wrong when he said, 'If a lion spoke, we wouldn't understand it'. Common emotions are an entry point into animal consciousness.
Review from Book Depository:
Why do we bite people we feel affection towards? Why do dogs wag their tails? Or cats purr? Why do we get embarrassed, and why does embarrassment make us blush? These and many other questions about the emotional life of man and animals are answered in this remarkable book.
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The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
Expression is the only book in which Darwin sketches out his revolutionary ideas about human behaviour in detail: he discusses childhood learning, insanity, painting and sculpture, animal behaviour and the differences in facial expression of the world's peoples.
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Easons €20.99
Book Depository €14.92
Waterstones £14.99
Wordery $16.35
Q. What's the most recent smart thinking book you've read (and how would you rate it)?
Merlin Sheldrake's Entangled Life. It's genuinely consciousness raising on so many levels, by showing how fungi are everywhere and all-powerful. And so beautifully written; Sheldrake is a poet. (and he knows it).
Review From Book Depository:
The more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them.
Neither plant nor animal, they are found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. They can be microscopic, yet also account for the largest organisms ever recorded. They enabled the first life on land, can survive unprotected in space and thrive amidst nuclear radiation. In fact, nearly all life relies in some way on fungi.
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Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures
These endlessly surprising organisms have no brain but can solve problems and manipulate animal behaviour with devastating precision. In giving us bread, alcohol and life-saving medicines, fungi have shaped human history, and their psychedelic properties have recently been shown to alleviate a number of mental illnesses. Their ability to digest plastic, explosives, pesticides and crude oil is being harnessed in break-through technologies, and the discovery that they connect plants in underground networks, the 'Wood Wide Web', is transforming the way we understand ecosystems. Yet over ninety percent of their species remain undocumented.
Entangled Life is a mind-altering journey into a spectacular and neglected world, and shows that fungi provide a key to understanding both the planet on which we live, and life itself.
Buy On:
Book Depository €17.55
Waterstones £17.99
Wordery $21.39
Q. Do you have a favourite childhood book?
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Review From Book Depository:
Four adventurous siblings-Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie- step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia, a land frozen in eternal winter and enslaved by the power of the White Witch. But when almost all hope is lost, the return of the Great Lion, Aslan, signals a great change . . . and a great sacrifice.
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The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the second book in C. S. Lewis's classic fantasy series, which has been drawing readers of all ages into a magical land with unforgettable characters for over sixty years. This is a stand-alone read, but if you would like to explore more of the Narnian realm, pick up The Horse and His Boy, the third book in The Chronicles of Narnia.
Buy On:
Easons €7.69
Book Depository €6.54
Waterstones £6.99
Wordery $9.01
Q. Do you prefer reading on paper, Kindle or listening to an audiobook?
On paper, naturally.
Q. Do you have a favourite bookshop (and why that shop)?
My father's, no longer existing, so in my memory. He ran a small book-shop in Herne Bay called 'Herne Bay Antiquarium'. I worked in it from the age of 10 to 18, with no pay. But the taste and smell of old books entered my system.
Many thanks to Michael for recommending a great set of books! Please don't forget to check out Michael's book The Musical Human: A History of Life on Earth.
Daryl
Image Copyrights: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (The Musical Human), Vintage Publishing (Entangled Life), HarperCollins Publishers (The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe).
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