This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession

Why is music such an important part of our lives, and what (non-musical) factors impact our taste in music? Daniel Levitin's This Is Your Brain on Music is an unusually intelligent book that reviews not just the neuroscience of how music impacts the brain but also the construction of music itself (Levitin was himself a former music producer). Levitin also challenges the theory somewhat common view among evolutionary scientists — though not Charles Darwin — that our love of music is merely an evolutionary accident.