Geoff Dyer reviews Alex Ross’s new book, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century. (The illustrations accompanying the review are notably stunning, too; not surprisingly, they’re by Christoph Niemann.)

I saw somewhere that Ross is reading from the book tonight at the National Arts Club, which sounds like fun. I don’t have a copy of the book yet, just the elegant pamphlet that FSG put out for the BEA, but I’m looking forward to reading it; I think Ross’s critical writing is tops.