Reviews and Comments

An interesting read for anyone like me who had a very idealistic view of public libraries and how working at one might be. The book was successful as a thought provoker, never have I ever reflected so much about how public services in general ought to be designed and the effects of social ills spilling over between government spheres - a parallel between libraries and police I never would have imagined. I'm now more aware of libraries as such a valuable sensor of how communities fare, whether their basic needs are met; and of course even more grateful for their existence. A public library gave me access to this book, and I'll be extra thankful from now on.

In terms of reading experience, some chapters felt a bit stretched. I understand the need to preface what cancel culture is, what social media does to society, what eugenic policies do to communities etc; all very fair and I think perhaps necessary so the thesis of each chapter can be self contained, but... personally I've found it a bit boring because halfway through the book, I'm sure the audience that chose to finish the read is the audience that's in the know about all that already. I might be wrong, but still, I found myself skimming frequently to the part where libraries come into play.

This book is so bad it almost becomes good. It's a collection that rehashes the most popular modern takes you can find browsing the average TED talk playlist. There's no consistency, no overarching theme. The title is truthful, it's one big chain of essays rewording Oprah, Brené Brown, Ryan Holiday at best; Deepak Chopra snake oil psychology at worst. Well, truthful if conceding that these are in fact essays, because a few will read like Buzzed text filler before a quiz on what is your "love language". McMindfulness, endless enumerations, jumping to conclusions, silly wordplay. The whole self help bingo is game.

The book was useful in a way. As I powered through each chapter I would stop to ponder: how would an editor fix this essay? Is it salvageable? This advice is simplistic and weak, but in what very specific situations could it possibly be true? I can immediately think of counter-examples and counter-arguments, but how would I play devil's advocate for this inane position if my life depended on it? It was a tough exercise but a fruitful one, so I am in fact hopeful that these 101 essays changed the way I think (about bad rationale).

I'm not ready for this book yet.

While I have the general feeling that the author's commentary is well informed, this is a hard book to appraise if you're not familiar enough with Mozart's work to recognize pieces by name, plus a few of his contemporaries like Haydn. My lack of familiarity makes the author's more speculative and far-fetching analysis stand out sorely, as I have no idea if such opinions are glaringly obvious from the music itself - for those who have the right ear - or if it's just a strong take the author felt like sharing.

The writer's research was clearly thorough, given mentions of letter correspondence and historical context descriptions are plentiful, but these materials aren't explicitly linked to general conclusions by the author. It's a bit disappointing because rather than the book telling me what to think based on the author's research, I'd prefer it showed me why each conclusion makes sense based on specific historical evidence.

On writing style, I found a bit tiresome the overuse of antithesis throughout. I get that ambiguity, paradoxes, contradictions and all sorts of juxtaposition-based figures of speech play a major role defining a complex musical piece, just like it does for literature, because everything and everyone carries conflicting worlds inside which contributes to expressiveness and semantic depth. But what that starts out feeling thoughtful quickly becomes a cookie-cutter formula for crafting critique - turbulent yet soothing; grandiose yet humbling; revolutionary yet familiar; competitive yet fraternal; etc. Again, show me why the piece contains multitudes instead of just telling me. In all fairness, the author sometimes tries to do so, speaking about specific movements and instrument interactions, but without knowing the piece by heart this isn't very effective.

Having consumed the text via audiobook, I lament the wasted opportunity of assembling a superb edition that could have contained a few musical excerpts of each work as they get commented. I'd bet that even for the most knowledgeable readers who heard each piece thousands of time, listening to some scores here and there would have enriched the experience.

If I could redo this read, I'd pick a physical copy instead of audiobook, and only advance in the material after listening to the pieces cited throughout each chapter. Perhaps even read while re-listening, and listening a third time after reading. Alas, I picked up this audiobook to listen on my commute and all this logistics is impractical.