For those unfamiliar with the Object Lessons series, these are short books that teach us about the secret lives of ordinary things. There are volumes on coffee, blue jeans, and the word “OK.” This latest one looks hard at “the devil’s horn” itself, the saxophone. “It has both enhanced and ruined songs, it is sensuous yet abrasive, and it is the only instrument widely excluded from symphonies and orchestras.” Hawkins does a great job of researching the instrument while illuminating “the dark paths that our passions can lead us down.”
(Paperback) $14.95
