Playback Book

I would recommend this book to anyone who has a broad audio collection. Coleman writes an interesting history covering the full history of recordings beginning with wax and ends his narrative with the advent of the iphone. He also provides insights about how certain genres and artists influence the creation and use of various media. It weakens near the end when he tends to spend a bit too much time--understandable since he is a journalist who covered these--on hip-hop and the various versions of MP3 devices.