A Romance on Three Legs

By Katie Hafner,

Book cover of A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano

Book description

A grand tale of obsession about the brilliant Glenn Gould and the unique, temperamental instrument he came to love beyond all others, by a top New York Times writer.
Glenn Gould was one of the most complex, brilliant artists of the twentieth century, a musician famous for bizarre habits: he…

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Why read it?

1 author picked A Romance on Three Legs as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I’ve always had mixed feelings about the great Glenn Gould, one of the outstanding Bach pianists.

This book captures what I love and hate about him, through the lens of his pianos and his blind piano technician. Gould actually hated the piano in a sense, always pushing it toward something it wasn’t, thinning out its sound like a harpsichord, while also trying to make its hammers more continuous-sounding, like an orchestra.

He’s also insufferable in the way that most great artists are, and this book documents that, including his imagined injuries, senseless lawsuits, and the abuse his technicians endured, who…

From Dan's list on Bach, music, and the piano.

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Tap Dancing on Everest By Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

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