"The most detailed and fascinating book about a recording engineer who worked on some of my favorite records. I wish there were more music books as good as this. Even though it seems impossible to know the final two Talk Talk albums and Mark Hollis’ solo album better than by listening to their murky, beautiful, sparse sound worlds, this series of first-hand accounts of the sessions —and those for Nilsson, Bob Marley and others—is incredibly illuminating."

"One of my favorite books, which I read when I was about twelve or fourteen, was Alfred Russel Wallace’s travels in the Far East in search of the birds of paradise. I thought he was a marvelous man and full of insight and compassion for the people he met. He was entirely by himself, getting on for eight years wandering around the islands of East Melanesia, western New Guinea and Borneo. He writes brilliantly and says marvelous things."