*New Yorker* music critic Alex Ross discusses his second book, *Listen to This*. *Listen to This*, which takes its title from a 2004 essay in which Ross describes his late-blooming discovery of pop music, showcases the best of his writing from more than a decade at* The New Yorker*. These pieces are dedicated to classical and popular artists alike. In a previously unpublished essay, Ross retells hundreds of years of music history--from Renaissance dances to Led Zeppelin--through a few iconic bass lines of celebration and lament. He sketches canonical composers such as Schubert, Verdi, and Brahms; gives us in-depth interviews with modern pop masters such as Bjork and Radiohead; and introduces us to music students at a Newark high school and indie-rock hipsters in Beijing. Whether his subject is Mozart or Bob Dylan, Ross shows how music expresses the full complexity of the human condition.
