Fluent and readable... [Levitin] rightly insists that we are all better equipped to perform and appreciate music than we think... We are, he says, hard-wired for music.

Consistently interesting... Music, Levitin argues, is not a decadent modern diversion but something of fundamental importance to the history of human development

Endlessly stimulating

Music seems to have an almost willful, evasive quality, defying simple explanation, so that the more we find out, the more there is to know... Daniel Levitin's book is an eloquent and poetic exploration of this paradox

You'll never hear music in the same way again

Ullmann navigates the dangerous and fissile territory... with great power. I am in awe

Effortlessly lucid, full of grace and restraint

A powerful and unsettling hybrid of memoir, fiction and meditation ... The work of a lifetime

Beautiful. A book to treasure which I'll keep on returning to.

This is nature writing at its most romantic

This captivating miscellany, richly illustrated with paintings, photographs, maps and line drawings, is a scintillating celebration of the nightingale by a Mercury Prize-nominated folk musician, environmental activist and conservationist.

A marvellous miscellany of the nightingale, the sweet-singing bird which is now, alas, on of the "endlings" - the last of a species facing extinction

Lee's book is not just a lyrically crafted biography, but a moving rebellion against political inaction and lost connections. It is a bell to toll you out into a forest of re-enchantment.

A really beautiful book . . . Lovely.

A vivid and often moving account of a bird that has inspired everyone from the ancients to John Keats and Oliver Messiaen

Heaven to hold in the hand, mind and heart.

Lyrical, sweet and loving, this account of one bird's link to human culture and history through the evocative presence of its voice was impossible to put down.

Lee delves into the intricacies of the song, habitat and migration of this mysterious, enchanting creature in a tale that's as lyrical as the bird itself

A composer who can write as eloquently as he sings. A rare bird, indeed!

With our new-found love of wildlife, this book promises to lift the spirits of not just bird enthusiasts, but nature lovers, too.

The exuberance of folk-singer Sam Lee's The Nightingale is irresistible

A master storyteller