Book Reports: A Music Critic on His First Love, Which Was Reading.

Christgau (Is It Still Good to Ya? Fifty Years of Rock Criticism) shares more than 90 in-depth book reviews and essays from his decades-long career as a music critic. Divided into themes covering music history, biography, fiction, culture, and politics, this collection examines the common threads the author finds running through each grouping. The section “From Blackface Minstrelsy to Track-and-Hook“ offers a snapshot of music history through the lenses of books on wide-ranging topics: the roots of American popular music, Cuban musicians, Romani instrumentalists, and even earworms. “Fictions“ includes a fascinating review of George Orwell’s 1984, originally published in the Village Voice in 1983. Finally, “Culture Meets Capital“ explores politics and finance, which may seemodd coming from a rock critic, but Christgau points out that music has “tangled ties to capitalism“ and that songs are influenced by the cultural landscapes in which they are created.