The Shock of Recognition: The Books and Music That Have Inspired Me

Author(s): Barry Jones

Biography, Memoir & Autobiography

'How much time do I have left? A hundred days? A thousand? If I knew I was going to die next week but could be taken to see The Marriage of Figaro tonight, would I go? Absolutely.'

In a long and generously lived life, Barry Jones has been on an endless quest to share the extraordinary and the beautiful, to encourage the pursuit of an abundant life of reading and listening.

Following the publication of A Thinking Reed, he was staggered by the response to his lists of the great works that have had the most profound effect on his life and thinking. Here he expands on those lists to write about the literature and the music that have inspired him. With no claims to objectivity, he urges us to take the plunge, to rattle the bars of the cage and expose ourselves to the music of Hildegard of Bingen, Johann Sebastian Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, Mahler, Ravel and Stravinsky as well as the writings of Homer, Dante, Chaucer, Montaigne, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Sterne, Tolstoy, Proust, Joyce, and Beckett among many more.

Eagerly awaited by his many followers, The Shock of Recognition is a deeply considered, richly rewarding and often very funny journey of the mind.

$32.99 AUD

Stock: 0


Add to Wishlist


Product Information

The Hon. Dr Barry Jones is a writer, broadcaster and former Labor member of both the State and Federal parliaments. He was Australia's longest serving Science Minister (1983-90) and served as National President of the Australian Labor Party from 1992 to 2000 and again in 2005-06. He is the only person to have been elected as a Fellow of all four Australian learned academies: Technological Sciences and Engineering in 1992, the Humanities in 1993, Science in 1996 and Social Sciences in 2003. He was also a member of the Executive Board of UNESCO in Paris (1991-95), Vice-President of the World Heritage Committee (1995-96) and a consultant for the OECD. He now serves on six medical research board and the board of CARE Australia.

1. LIFE OF MY MIND..PART I MUSIC, THE FOOD OF LOVE..2. GREAT MUSIC: SIXTY WORKS..3. EARLY AND BAROQUE MUSIC..4. CLASSICAL AND ROMANTIC MUSIC..5. MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY MUSIC..6. OPERA..PART II GREAT LITERATURE..7. FROM HOMER TO DANTE..8. LADY MURASAKI AND THE TALE OF GENJI..9. CHAUCER'S CANTERBURY TALES AND TYNDALE'S BIBLE..10. MONTAIGNE, EXPLORER OF SELF..11. DON QUIXOTE..12. SHAKESPEARE AS NOVELIST..13. FIVE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ORIGINALS..14. FRENCH MASTERS..15. PROUST'S IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME..16. THE GREAT RUSSIANS..17. EXILES..NOW, VOYAGER..APPENDIX: A guide for music consumers

General Fields

  • : 9781741759662
  • : Allen & Unwin
  • : Allen & Unwin
  • : January 2016
  • : 23.40 cmmm X 15.30 cmmm
  • : Australia
  • : March 2016
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Barry Jones
  • : Paperback
  • : 216
  • : en
  • : 994.04092
  • : 432