The rest is noise

the long version

The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century is a 2007 nonfiction book by the American music critic, Alex Ross, first published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It received widespread critical praise in the U.S. and Europe, garnering a National Book Critics Circle Award, a Guardian First Book Award, a Premio Napoli and the 2011 Grand Prix des Muses. The Rest is Noise also had a spot on the New York Times list of the ten best books of 2007, and a finalist citation for the Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction. The book was also shortlisted for the 2008 Samuel Johnson Prize for nonfiction.