Tonight in London I happily and gratefully received the Guardian First Book Award. Deepest thanks to the Guardian jury for bestowing this honor and also to broad-minded readers' groups from the Waterstones chain for voting The Rest Is Noise onto the shortlist. Hors d'oeuvres at the ceremony were handed out on serving trays containing copies of the shortlisted books; hence the photo in the corner. I'll be able to catch one concert during this very brief trip to London; tomorrow night at Wigmore Hall, Steven Isserlis and Thomas Adès play a program of Debussy, Janáček, Fauré, Kurtág, Ravel, and Poulenc. By the way, if you are new to this site, you can here find an Audio Guide to twentieth-century music and also a glossary of wacky musical terms.
Update: Colin Greenwood, my illustrious guest at the event, says blushingly nice things about the book to Claire Armitstead.
