It's Berlin's Trainspotting, only without the drugs

razor sharp prose

Hilarious ... a masterclass in the perils of being a luvvie

One of Britain's funniest writers

Readers at large will be rewarded with self-helpless laughter, generated by the absurdity and blessedness of the job Simkins loves

Terrifyingly accurate

Hugely entertaining

An accessible guide to roughly 42,000 years of music in just over 300 pages that manages neither to sacfrifice precise detail nor pugnacious opinion ... Goodall is unfailingly acute ... a clever, engaging read

He starts right at the beginning, with 25,000-year-old bone flutes ... It's a huge brief, made huger by Goodall's alertness to new thinking in scholarly circles, and his fondness for interesting asides ... a racily written, learned and often shrewdly insightful book

A roller-coaster ride, which Goodall tells with verve... a racily written, learned and often shrewdly insightful book

An accessible guide to roughly 42,000 years of music in just over 300 pages … The Story of Music is a clever, engaging read

Howard Goodall’s beautifully clear and compelling account is both a hymn to human endeavour and a groundbreaking map of man’s musical journey

Goodall's distinguisihing gift is his ability to explain the mechanics of music instead of gliding hastily over them. He is fearless in unknotting those medieval mysteries of oranum and isorhythms, as well as chords, triads, fugues, keys, equal temperament, atonality, dodecaphony and blues

There is a Jumpin’ Jack Flash liveliness in Goodall’s approach

A clear and compelling account which is a hymn to human endeavor and a groundbreaking musical journey

Fascinating – as well as illuminating on how music works

Who better to demystify the origins of music and trace the evolution of this most universal of artistic disciplines?

At his best, Goodall has a facility for lively shorthand…

Rod Stewart reveals all in a hilarious and, at times, moving book…A brilliant read—you’ll be hooked.

[Rod] has warm good humour and a nice line in self-deprecation...He wears it well—and tells it even better.

By some distance the most entertaining of last year’s...rock star memoirs.

This book takes readers on an adventure, that is at times deeply moving, through the life of one of the UK's greatest singers.

Ruthlessly entertaining