(no subject)

How Women Made Music: A Revolutionary History from NPR Music
edited by Alison Fensterstock

This book is largely based on NPR's Turning the Tables series about women in music. It's a bit breezy and magazine-like, but does provide a nice overview of women in 20th and 21st century popular music. The material is divided into several larger chapters, highlighting broad concepts like "Storytellers" and "Scream Queens". Each chapter is made up of short contributions from various NPR writers - these contributions take several forms: brief essays, interview excerpts, mini-reviews of songs or albums, and short write-ups about an artist or song.
It's not scholarly or comprehensive, or deep, but it is fun and interesting. The book's content sparked my interest and curiosity for several artists that I am not very familiar with. And any book about music that makes me want to listen to music that's new or unfamiliar to me is a worthwhile book about music.

(no subject)

Chen Yi
by Leta E. Miller and J. Michele Edwards

This book covers Chen Yi's life and music very well. The focus is on her music rather than biographical details, but given that her work is not examined in isolation from her life, the authors provide a full and rich picture of both. The book's biggest strength is in Miller and Edwards' approach to discussing Chen's music. They avoid descriptive narration and instead concentrate on the compositional processes and materials at play. Musical examples and analytical charts are always clear and well-annotated. I got a very deep and thorough understanding of what Chen does and how she does it. I think my future experiences of Chen's music will be all the better and more meaningful for having read this book.