Love DJing For Dummies? Readers share 45 books like DJing For Dummies...

By John Steventon, Phil Morse (editor),

Here are 45 books that DJing For Dummies fans have personally recommended if you like DJing For Dummies. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of How to D.J: The Art and Science of Playing Records

Phil Morse Author Of Rock The Dancefloor: The proven five-step formula for DJing like a pro

From my list on help you become an expert DJ.

Why am I passionate about this?

Having started DJing at the age of 15 (my mum had to drive me to gigs!) and DJed professionally since 1991, I've seen and done most things in this game, from DJing at Privilege in Ibiza (at the time, the biggest nightclub in the world), to co-promoting an award-winning club night of my own in my home town of Manchester, England, for many years, to other types of DJing like playing on the radio, a stint as a mobile DJ, live streaming (in Covid), podcasting and—since 2010—running Digital DJ Tips, the world's largest online DJ school. 

Phil's book list on help you become an expert DJ

Phil Morse Why did Phil love this book?

Definitely dated, UK-centric, and undeniably highly opinionated, this is nonetheless essential. It is a fascinating read, a historical document of the height of the 90s dance scene, and it's both honest and humorous to boot. If you want a pile of hints and tips about how to DJ well while at the same time finding yourself falling in love with how special dance music can be and what it can mean to those who dedicate their lives to it, add this one to your list.

Not one to leave lying around, though, as it is pretty honest about the underbelly of the dance scene in places—as is another book we're getting to later in this list.

By Frank Broughton, Bill Brewster,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked How to D.J as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

DJs have gone from being underpaid live jukeboxes to becoming premier entertainers, producers, businessmen, and musicians capable of commanding admiration from thousands and earning serious money. Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton's Last Night a DJ Saved My Life was the definitive history of the DJ. Now they gather their mastery of the artistic and technical aspects of being a DJ into a clear, accessible, and entertaining guide. How to DJ is the perfect guide -- from the most basic keys to establishing a music collection and a distinctive sound, to elementary record-spinning, to the complex skills of scratching, hot-mixing, and…


Book cover of The Secret DJ

Phil Morse Author Of Rock The Dancefloor: The proven five-step formula for DJing like a pro

From my list on help you become an expert DJ.

Why am I passionate about this?

Having started DJing at the age of 15 (my mum had to drive me to gigs!) and DJed professionally since 1991, I've seen and done most things in this game, from DJing at Privilege in Ibiza (at the time, the biggest nightclub in the world), to co-promoting an award-winning club night of my own in my home town of Manchester, England, for many years, to other types of DJing like playing on the radio, a stint as a mobile DJ, live streaming (in Covid), podcasting and—since 2010—running Digital DJ Tips, the world's largest online DJ school. 

Phil's book list on help you become an expert DJ

Phil Morse Why did Phil love this book?

As a DJ tutor who's been in this game for 30+ years, I'm amazed at how often students really want me to tell them a bit about what it was like to DJ on the club scene "back in the day." When they do, I send them to this book.

Written by an anonymous DJ who toured the world playing in the best clubs for long enough to experience many highs and some considerable lows, it is part memoir, part Spinal Tap, as it lifts the lid on the hedonism, stupidity, and craziness of the club/rave scene at its height. Certainly harrowing in parts, but it is also laugh-out-loud funny - and is nothing if not brutally honest.

By The Secret DJ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Secret DJ as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

DISCOVER THE REALITY OF LIFE AS A SUPERSTAR DJ IN THIS SENSATIONAL EXPOSE OF WHAT REALLY GOES ON BEHIND THE BPMs.

The glamour, the parties, the excess, the highs and, of course, the lows. In The Secret DJ, a globally renowned DJ takes us on a breakneck journey, plunging us into a life lived in the hedonistic fast lane of club culture over the last thirty years, from the dawn of acid house to the dusk of EDM. Whether playing to ten thousand fans in Ibiza's superclubs or in a local pub function room, this DJ's experiences are a cautionary…


Book cover of Dance Music Manual

Phil Morse Author Of Rock The Dancefloor: The proven five-step formula for DJing like a pro

From my list on help you become an expert DJ.

Why am I passionate about this?

Having started DJing at the age of 15 (my mum had to drive me to gigs!) and DJed professionally since 1991, I've seen and done most things in this game, from DJing at Privilege in Ibiza (at the time, the biggest nightclub in the world), to co-promoting an award-winning club night of my own in my home town of Manchester, England, for many years, to other types of DJing like playing on the radio, a stint as a mobile DJ, live streaming (in Covid), podcasting and—since 2010—running Digital DJ Tips, the world's largest online DJ school. 

Phil's book list on help you become an expert DJ

Phil Morse Why did Phil love this book?

Rick has been the go-to expert in print on how to make dance music for many years, and while techniques and practices in music production change all the time, this book remains an invaluable reference on how to make music for yourself.

Nowadays, if you want success outside of your own town or city, it is practically essential that you make music as well as play it, so if being a "DJ/producer" rather than just a "DJ" is what you're gunning for, this is one you should definitely add to your bookshelf, which will give you the theory and background behind the skills that courses and videos can teach you when it comes to making music the modern way.

By Rick Snoman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Dance Music Manual as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Dance Music Manual, aimed at the novice and seasoned professional alike, takes the reader through the software and hardware needed to create original, captivating, and professional sounding music.

Key features of Dance Music Manual include:

How to create compelling, professional-sounding original or remixed dance tracks.

The differences between different genres and how to produce them.

How to expose your tracks to their chosen audience and equip you with the skills to develop your career as a dance music producer and engineer.

Along with the book is a companion website, which provides examples of synthesis programming, compression, effects, MIDI files, and…


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Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

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…

Book cover of Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey

Phil Morse Author Of Rock The Dancefloor: The proven five-step formula for DJing like a pro

From my list on help you become an expert DJ.

Why am I passionate about this?

Having started DJing at the age of 15 (my mum had to drive me to gigs!) and DJed professionally since 1991, I've seen and done most things in this game, from DJing at Privilege in Ibiza (at the time, the biggest nightclub in the world), to co-promoting an award-winning club night of my own in my home town of Manchester, England, for many years, to other types of DJing like playing on the radio, a stint as a mobile DJ, live streaming (in Covid), podcasting and—since 2010—running Digital DJ Tips, the world's largest online DJ school. 

Phil's book list on help you become an expert DJ

Phil Morse Why did Phil love this book?

It's a good book to own alongside the same authors' "how-to" guide listed above. I always recommend this one for my students when they want to understand a bit more about what it is actually like to DJ professionally and why people dedicate their lives to it.

The book is in the form of a series of interviews with DJs, many of whom are well known (or at least, were at the time it was written—it is quite old), but many of whom certainly weren't ever famous, and historically it covers a large timespan. Success in DJing means something very different depending upon your outlook, where you are in the world, and so on, and this book empowers the learning DJ to have confidence in their dreams by sharing a wide range of stories and experiences of the life of the DJ.

By Bill Brewster, Frank Broughton,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Last Night a DJ Saved My Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Literally changed the course of my life' James Murphy

'The chapter on Larry Levan alone transformed me into wanting to be your favorite DJ' Questlove

'The original and still the best' Gilles Peterson

'We can't tell the story of dance music without speaking the names of Sharon White and Judy Weinstein, so I welcome this vital update' The Blessed Madonna

When someone says, 'You have to know your history...' this is it. This classic book is the whole unruly story of dance music in one volume. It recreates the dancefloors that made history, conjuring their atmosphere with loving detail and…


Book cover of Ten Ways to Hear Snow

Wendy BooydeGraaff Author Of Salad Pie

From my list on playing outside.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love the outdoors, and there are so many benefits to playing, imagining, and being outside. I grew up on a fruit farm in Southern Ontario, so I spent much of my growing years playing outdoors and enjoying the natural world. When I became a professional educator, I read the research about the very concrete benefits being outside every day has on young learners. Bring on the recess! Books have a way of sparking action. When we read about how someone else enjoys the outdoors, it makes us want to do the same. Books are inspiring.

Wendy's book list on playing outside

Wendy BooydeGraaff Why did Wendy love this book?

Ten Ways to Hear Snow commemorates the sounds of winter. Lina sets off alone to visit her grandmother (another Little Red Riding Hood reference!) the morning after a blizzard. As she walks through the neighbourhood, she notices the sounds snow makes while building a snowman, shoveling snow, and more. At her grandma’s place, they form a new point of connection because her grandma can’t see well and so relies on listening.

By Cathy Camper, Kenard Pak (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ten Ways to Hear Snow as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 4, 5, 6, and 7.

What is this book about?

One winter morning, Lina wakes up to silence. It's the sound of snow - the kind that looks soft and glows bright in the winter sun. But as she walks to her grandmother's house to help make the family recipe for warak enab, she continues to listen.

As Lina walks past snowmen and across icy sidewalks, she discovers ten ways to pay attention to what might have otherwise gone unnoticed.


Book cover of Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music

Harvey G. Cohen Author Of Duke Ellington's America

From my list on American popular music history.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an author and educator, my work centers on the history, business, and art of the music industry and film industry. I don’t think my fellow historians use musical evidence enough as a primary document that reveals much about the society and time period one is writing aboutjust as much as the usual primary and secondary documents historians use.  I try to ensure my books are entertaining as well as rigorously researched. I’m also a songwriter, with many years in the music biz, and have done much work in radio, especially crafting music shows. I’m always discovering amazing stuff from various eras, and it’s not much fun if you don’t share it, which is part of why I’m on Twitter.

Harvey's book list on American popular music history

Harvey G. Cohen Why did Harvey love this book?

Going back 125 years in recording history, Milner’s book will make you question what “good recorded sound” is, and how that notion, surprisingly, is a political one that has changed over time. A diversity of genres and artists are brought in to prove his points. He demonstrates why technological innovations such as the cylinder, the 78RPM record, magnetic tape, albums, transistors, the cassette, the CD, ProTools and of course MP3s changed the sound and content of music forever. And also how such changes greatly affected the bottom line of the music business, increasing or decreasing revenue as the case may be. Might change how you view your music collection.

By Greg Milner,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Perfecting Sound Forever as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1915, Thomas Edison proclaimed that he could record a live performance and reproduce it perfectly, shocking audiences who found themselves unable to tell whether what they were hearing was an Edison Diamond Disc or a flesh-and-blood musician. Today, the equation is reversed. Whereas Edison proposed that a real performance could be rebuilt with absolute perfection, Pro Tools and digital samplers now allow musicians and engineers to create the illusion of performances that never were. In between lies a century of sonic exploration into the balance between the real and the represented.

Tracing the contours of this history, Greg Milner…


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Book cover of The Ballad of Falling Rock

The Ballad of Falling Rock by Jordan Dotson,

Truth told, folks still ask if Saul Crabtree sold his soul for the perfect voice. If he sold it to angels or devils. A Bristol newspaper once asked: “Are his love songs closer to heaven than dying?” Others wonder how he wrote a song so sad, everyone who heard it…

Book cover of Tuning the Human Biofield: Healing with Vibrational Sound Therapy

Lauren Walker Author Of The Energy to Heal: Find Lasting Freedom From Stress and Trauma Through Energy Medicine Yoga

From my list on understanding what energy is and how to use it.

Why am I passionate about this?

I remember being a kid and wanting to know everything about everything. After I’d been teaching yoga for several years, and finding myself struggling with stress and trauma that the yoga wasn’t helping, I really started to dive into the world of Energy. That world is fascinating, endless, and powerful. And the more I study and learn, the better my life gets. I’ve created my own teaching methodology from all the studies I’ve done and helped thousands of people find their own inner strength and healing. I love learning how other people overcame their struggles and how at the root, we basically all want to help each other! That's the kind of world I aspire to. 

Lauren's book list on understanding what energy is and how to use it

Lauren Walker Why did Lauren love this book?

If you want your mind blown, and want to cultivate a new understanding of how the universe works: buy this book! Eileen opens up the cosmology that we all learned and shows us that there is another way to view how the world works. And with that understanding, we have a way to see ourselves as part of the world instead of separate from it. This connection is the start of healing. And all of that is only the first half of the book. 

She then takes the reader on a wild ride into understanding how the field that surrounds the body – called the aura or the biofield – works, holds information, and also holds one of the keys to healing and well-being. This book is engaging, inspirational, and totally not what you were expecting!

By Eileen Day McKusick,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Tuning the Human Biofield as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A guide to the basics of Biofield Tuning, using tuning forks to clear trauma stored in the human energy field

* Provides a precise map of the energetic biofield that surrounds the body, showing where specific emotions, memories, traumas, and pain are stored

* Details how to locate stored trauma in the biofield with a tuning fork and clear it

* Winner of the 2015 Nautilus Silver Award

When Eileen McKusick began offering sound therapy in her massage practice she soon discovered she could use tuning forks to locate and hear disturbances in the energy field, or biofield, that surrounded…


Book cover of How Music Works

Nick Prior Author Of Popular Music, Digital Technology and Society

From my list on popular music, technology, and society.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a Professor of Cultural Sociology at Edinburgh, UK, and have written extensively on contemporary culture and particularly technological mediations of popular music. I have undertaken empirical research on cultures of popular music in places like Iceland, Japan, and the UK, and I have supervised around 25 doctoral students to successful completion. My work is widely cited in the field of cultural sociology, and I am regularly interviewed by national broadcasters and the press. I’m also an amateur musician, making homespun electronic music in my bedroom and releasing it under the monikers Sponge Monkeys and Triviax.

Nick's book list on popular music, technology, and society

Nick Prior Why did Nick love this book?

I wasn’t expecting this! One of the most gifted and quirky songsmiths of the age, the lead singer of art pop band The Talking Heads no less, turns his attention to the technological evolution of music.

I found profound insight and erudition on every page, but it’s not preachy or overly auto-biographical. Instead, Byrne limns out the changing shapes of music and how it comes into being in composition, performance, and education. He is as much at ease with Hume and Adorno as he is with scales, harmonies, and DJ culture, and the payoff is enormous.

Whenever I pick this book up, which is regularly, it takes me on unexpected journeys and provokes new ideas. My favorite quote on the creative process: “The idea is to allow the chthonic material the freedom it needs to gurgle up.” 

By David Byrne,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked How Music Works as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

How Music Works is David Byrne's buoyant celebration of a subject he has spent a lifetime thinking about.

Equal parts historian and anthropologist, raconteur and social scientist, Byrne draws on his own work over the years with Talking Heads, Brian Eno, and his myriad collaborators - along with journeys to Wagnerian opera houses, African villages, and anywhere music exists - to show that music-making is not just the act of a solitary composer in a studio, but rather a logical, populist, and beautiful result of cultural circumstance.

A brainy, irresistible adventure, How Music Works is an impassioned argument about music's…


Book cover of Atmospheric Noise: The Indefinite Urbanism of Los Angeles

Eric Porter Author Of A People's History of SFO: The Making of the Bay Area and an Airport

From my list on airports teaching us about society.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve long had an ambivalent relationship with airports. They have been the starting point for my adventures, but I have also known well the discomfort, boredom, stress, surveillance, bad food, and other unpleasantries that often define airport experiences. Despite my ambivalence, I’ve found airports to be fascinating places where differently situated people (travelers and workers) encounter one another. I’ve learned that those encounters, as well as airport operations and design, tell us something about the places where they are located and the broader societies in which we live. I’ve since become aware that reading (and writing) about airports are also great ways to gain such insights. 

Eric's book list on airports teaching us about society

Eric Porter Why did Eric love this book?

This account of how LAX shaped its surrounding environment usefully affirmed my own decision to focus on a particular place. Its careful focus on how jet noise catalyzed relationships among a wide array of people and social forces in Los Angeles helped me understand better how such relationships had developed about 400 miles to the north.

Beyond all of that, this book has a lot of smart things to say about how noise more generally shapes our urban environments and attunes us to them.

By Marina Peterson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Atmospheric Noise as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Atmospheric Noise, Marina Peterson traces entanglements of environmental noise, atmosphere, sense, and matter that cohere in and through encounters with airport noise since the 1960s. Exploring spaces shaped by noise around Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), she shows how noise is a way of attuning toward the atmospheric: through noise we learn to listen to the sky and imagine the permeability of bodies and matter, sensing and conceiving that which is diffuse, indefinite, vague, and unformed. In her account, the "atmospheric" encompasses the physicality of the ephemeral, dynamic assemblages of matter as well as a logic of indeterminacy. It…


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Book cover of The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier,

The coaching book that's for all of us, not just coaches.

It's the best-selling book on coaching this century, with 15k+ online reviews. Brené Brown calls it "a classic". Dan Pink said it was "essential".

It is practical, funny, and short, and "unweirds" coaching. Whether you're a parent, a teacher,…

Book cover of The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction

Alejandra Bronfman Author Of Isles of Noise: Sonic Media in the Caribbean

From my list on sound and why you should care about it.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been doing research in the Caribbean for twenty-five years. The region is diverse and magnificent. Caribbean people have sought creative solutions for racial inequality, climate and sustainability, media literacy and information, women’s and family issues. The transnational connections with the US are complex and wide-ranging, and knowing more about this region is an urgent matter. I work to understand how sound and media work because they structure our reality in important ways. Listening as a way of approaching relationships in work and play is key to our survival. So is understanding how media works, where we get our information from, and how to tell what’s relevant, significant, and true, and what is not. 

Alejandra's book list on sound and why you should care about it

Alejandra Bronfman Why did Alejandra love this book?

Sterne explores the cultural history of how and why Americans developed technologies that reproduced and transmitted sound. It is a surprising story that takes us through the Civil War and ideas about death, deaf children and their teachers, the discipline of medicine, and the practice of folklore. It turns out that cultural shifts encouraged the preservation of sound, and those machines we developed in turn changed the ways we listen.

By Jonathan Sterne,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Audible Past as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Audible Past explores the cultural origins of sound reproduction. It describes a distinctive sound culture that gave birth to the sound recording and the transmission devices so ubiquitous in modern life. With an ear for the unexpected, scholar and musician Jonathan Sterne uses the technological and cultural precursors of telephony, phonography, and radio as an entry point into a history of sound in its own right. Sterne studies the constantly shifting boundary between phenomena organized as "sound" and "not sound." In The Audible Past, this history crisscrosses the liminal regions between bodies and machines, originals and copies, nature and…


Book cover of How to D.J: The Art and Science of Playing Records
Book cover of The Secret DJ
Book cover of Dance Music Manual

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