174 ratings | 1 review | avg rating:4.14

Tim's Bookshelves

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currently-reading (7)
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Tim Riley

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Tim Riley

Goodreads author profile

url

http://www.goodreads.com/triley60

born

February 19, 1960 in New York City, The United States

gender

male

website

http://www.timrileyauthor.com

twitter username

triley60

genre

Nonfiction, History, Arts & Photography

influences

Dickens, Faulkner, Shaw

member since

August 2007

About this author

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NPR CRITIC, AUTHOR, PIANIST, and SPEAKER TIM RILEY reviews pop and classical music for NPR's HERE AND NOW, and has written for the HUFFINGTON POST, THE WASHINGTON POST, SLATE.COM and SALON.COM. He was trained as a classical pianist at Oberlin and Eastman, and remains among the few critics who writes about both "high" and "low" culture and their overlapping concerns.

Brown University sponsored Riley as Critic-In Residence in 2008, and in 2009 he began teaching multi-media courses as Journalist In Residence at Emerson College in Boston.

His first book, Tell Me Why: A Beatles Commentary (Knopf/Vintage 1988), was hailed by the New York Times as bringing "new insight to the act we've known for all these years..."

A staple author in college course...more

95 posts
Tim Riley's Blog

CRAIG MOD HACKS THE DIGITAL COVER

Mod’s essay on how book covers evolve on new platforms: #

…my platonic goal was to evoke a classic sense of cover. Functional covers. Unrippable covers. Covers for books you can toss in a bag and not worry about. Simple covers that bleed into the bodies of books. #

Example: Cardon Webb’s series for Oliver Sacks:

View more on Tim Riley's website »

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Published on May 30, 2012 05:52

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combine editions
Books by Tim Riley

Average rating: 3.88 · 284 ratings · 40 reviews · 16 distinct works

	Tell Me Why: The Beatles: Album By Album, Song By Song, The Sixties And After 4.04 avg rating — 172 ratings — published 1988 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Lennon: The Man, the Myth, the Music - The Definitive Life 3.83 avg rating — 69 ratings — published 2011 — 5 editions	My rating:
	Hard Rain: A Dylan Commentary by Tim Riley (Goodreads Author), Gwendoline Riley 3.67 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 1992 — 5 editions	My rating:
	Beautiful Testing: Leading Professionals Reveal How They Improve Software by Tim Riley (Goodreads Author), Adam Goucher 3.36 avg rating — 14 ratings — published 2009 — 3 editions	My rating:
	Fever: How Rock 'n' Roll Transformed Gender in America 2.60 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 2004 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Untitled John Lennon Biography 3.00 avg rating — 1 rating	My rating:
	A History of Anne Arundel County, in Maryland. Adapted for Use in the Schools of the County 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2010	My rating:
	How to Stop Smoking and Stay Stopped for Good 3.75 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 1992 — 11 editions	My rating:
	Dictionary of Latin and Greek Quotations, Proverbs, Maxims, and Mottos, Classical and Mediaeval, Including Law Terms and Phrases (1891) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2010	My rating:
	First[-Ninth] Annual Report on the Noxious, Beneficial and Other Insects, of the State of Missouri, Made to the State Board of Agriculture, 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2010	My rating:

More books by Tim Riley…

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Tim's Writing

FEVER: HOW ROCK TRANFORMED GENDER IN AMERICAN (Arts & Photography)

0 chapters — updated Aug 30, 2007 05:39pm

Description: "Riley is at his very best." --The New York Observer In Fever, music critic Tim Riley argues that while political and athletic role models have let us down, rock and roll has provided enduring role models for men and women. From Elvis Presley to Tina Turner to Bruce Springsteen to Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, Riley makes a persuasive case that rock and roll, far from the corrosive force that conservative critics make it out to be, has instead been a positive influence in people's lives, laying out gender-defying role models far more enduringly than movies, TV or "real life". "Tim Riley's Fever combines brainy and audacious cultural analysis with genuine musical understanding -- a combination rare enough to inspire exhilaration." --Tim Page, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Tim Page on Music "In his new book, Fever, Tim Riley goes beyond his unique fusion of technical music knowledge and stunningly perceptive emotional exegesis of lyrics to a wider-angle social vision." --Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Observer "Fever is a fascinating look at the ways rock has shaped how we think about sexual identity....Riley presents serious academic points within a rock-critic analysis of icons that even a layperson would appreciate.... Witty, acerbic, and smart." --Charles R. Cross, author of Heavier Than Heaven

Tim is Currently Reading

Tim Riley gave

to:

The War to End All Wars: World War I

by Russell Freedman

bookshelves: currently-reading

My rating:

Feb 21, 2012 06:04pm

Tim Riley gave

to:

The Missing of the Somme

by Geoff Dyer

bookshelves: currently-reading

My rating:

Feb 11, 2012 07:05am

Tim Riley is currently reading:

Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening

by Christopher Small

bookshelves: currently-reading

My rating:

Dec 05, 2011 05:35pm

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Tim's Recent Updates

Tim Riley wrote a new blog post: CRAIG MOD HACKS THE DIGITAL COVER CRAIG MOD HACKS THE DIGITAL COVER Mod’s essay on how book covers evolve on new platforms: # …my platonic goal was to evoke a classic sense of cover. Functional covers. Unrippable cov... read more »
May 30, 2012 11:04am · like
Tim Riley gave to: The Great Black Way L.A. in the 1940s and the Lost African-American Renaissance by R.J. Smith	My rating:
Apr 19, 2012 06:18pm
Tim Riley gave to: The One: The Life and Music of James Brown by R.J. Smith	My rating:
Apr 19, 2012 06:18pm
Tim Riley became a fan of Muriel Spark and Pat Barker
Mar 15, 2012 06:26pm · all of Tim's favorite authors
Tim Riley voted on the list Best Books Ever
Feb 21, 2012 06:09pm · like · Tim's votes · everyone's votes · vote
Tim Riley gave to: The Killing of Crazy Horse by Thomas Powers	My rating:
Dec 05, 2011 05:26pm
Tim Riley liked a photo
Nov 12, 2011 07:14pm
Tim Riley added a photo
Nov 12, 2011 07:10pm · like 1 like · all of Tim's photos
Tim Riley is on page 150 of 524 of Bloodlands Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder progress:	My rating:
Feb 01, 2011 11:39am · like · see status