Rating: 
Summary: This Is What Piano Enthusiasm Feels Like
Review: Thad Carhart's book fits into a rare category. It's for piano enthusiasts but it isn't really about pianos so much as about the kinds of feelings people have associated with them. This is a wonderful book and frankly anyone who likes this book as much as I is on my wavelength. He describes so many rare and wonderful pianos including his own Stingl baby grand, numerous Pleyels and his trip to Fazioli in Italy which for piano enthusiasts is like finding the holy grail. I gave this book five stars but frankly for me it goes way off the scale. A must read for a certain kind of adult piano student, someone returning to the instrument perhaps after a long hiatus.
Rating: 
Summary: A lazy read for piano lovers
Review: Thad Carhart's The Piano Shop on the Left Bank is a disarmingly simple book on the surface that will appeal to piano dreamers -- anyone who has either owned or enjoyed playing a piano. The book is slow in the unwinding of its story, and you can easily put it down and pick it back up at your leisure.The story focuses on the growing relationship between the author, an American in Paris, and Luc, the very French owner of a piano shop tucked away in Paris' Latin Quarter. As the author spends time in the piano shop, his love, interest, and knowledge for this instrument reawaken after years of lying dormant. He realizes his dream to own a piano and begins taking lessons again. The friendly piano shop owner, Luc, has a passion for pianos from all eras. He brings every piano to life as though each large, cumbersome instrument that passes through his shop were a special person. He wants to match up pianos with the right owner. The most shameful treatment is to leave a piano sitting in a corner, unused and unloved. The book also weaves in the beautiful history of the piano, from the piano's origins in Italy to its heyday at the turn of the 20th century. The piano, one of the most popular and revered musical instruments, was at the center of Americans' social life before the invention of radio and TV. There is a sadness as you realize that the golden age of the piano has passed. All piano makers of the early 20th century are in decline, with only Steinway surviving as an independent company. The author leaves us with hope as he describes a new piano maker on the scene -- Fizoli. Fizoli had a dream to build the best piano, challenging the way all pianos were built and starting over from scratch in his development of them. Today, his dream has become a reality as he builds pianos world-renowned for their special soundboards and rich, melodic tone. Ironically, the best piano company is in Italy, home of the piano. And with piano shops like Luc's reviving and fixing up old pianos, the piano will continue to be the world's best-loved instrument. The dreams will live on.
Rating:
Summary: The Shop Around the Corner
Review: Thad Carhart, although born and educated in the United States has spent most of his life in France, first as a child when his father worked in Europe and for the last twelve years by choice. In The Piano Shop on the Left Bank he describes the joy of quotidian life in Paris, the serendipitous discovery of a tiny cafè, bistro, boutique or in this case, piano shop, that lurks just around the corner. While performing the daily ritual of walking his young children to the neighborhood school he came upon a store front with a simple sign: "Desforges piano, outillage, fourniture-pianos and piano tools. Behind a heavy, gauze curtain lay the interior of the shop that would enhance his life. In the slow, incremental French way in which trust is developed and friendship fostered, Carhart made new friends and rediscovered the joy of music and piano playing. What differentiates the sound of one brand from another, what makes a great piano tuner and incredibly, how one man can hoist a 600 pound piano onto his
back and carry it up a flight of stairs in less than three minutes. But you don't have to know anything about pianos to enjoy the richness of Mr. Carhart's detailed descriptions that burst with humanity.
Rating:
Summary: For the love of the piano
Review: Thank you, Thad, for so beautifully capturing the vast range of emotions that pianos stir in their aficionados. What a gem! This book will become a classic, just like the classic pianos that mysteriously show up and pass through Luc's atelier. I greatly enjoyed Thad's command of language, his keen and affectionate observations of his French collegues (only in France would Thad be viewed as an American, in any other culture a person with such an in-depth understanding of the culture and fluency of language would have been adopted as a local), and the manner in which he conveys the feelings pianos evoke in him. I also enjoyed the growing familiarity between Thad and Luc and the evolution of humour in their discourses. And despite the tragedy of the situation, had to laugh when Thad - with utmost sensitivity - points out how the unfortunate alcoholic Jos would wake up in train stations across France.
My preferred piano is the Sauter - I love the warmth and richness of its song - and most generously my mother gave me the piano that once brought much joy to dad. Just like Thad observes so well, one is often greatly attached to a particular instrument because a loved one who has since passed on used to play it. And hearing music come alive again, music that was once played by someone who no longer is alive, can cause strong emotions to surface. Shortly after my father passed on I attended an Evgeny Kissin (sp?) concert, and when EK started playing one of my father's favorite Chopin pieces, I could no longer control myself ... (I guess in a quiet concert hall you just try and quietly blow into a handkerchief). I also remember piano lessons I took as a child in France, and reading Thad's desciptions brought back memories. The teacher I had back then was not as gifted as some other ones in other countries at drawing out my enthusiasm for this wonderful instrument. Thad's logic when looking for an appropriate teacher for his children made a lot of sense.
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank is a most evocative book and a must-have for anyone who is affected by the sounds of a piano as well as the beauty of language.
Rating:
Summary: For the love of the piano
Review: Thank you, Thad, for so beautifully capturing the vast range of emotions that pianos stir in their aficionados. What a gem! This book will become a classic, just like the classic pianos that mysteriously show up and pass through Luc's atelier. I greatly enjoyed Thad's command of language, his keen and affectionate observations of his French collegues (only in France would Thad be viewed as an American, in any other culture a person with such an in-depth understanding of the culture and fluency of language would have been adopted as a local), and the manner in which he conveys the feelings pianos evoke in him. I also enjoyed the growing familiarity between Thad and Luc and the evolution of humour in their discourses. And despite the tragedy of the situation, had to laugh when Thad - with utmost sensitivity - points out how the unfortunate alcoholic Jos would wake up in train stations across France.
My preferred piano is the Sauter - I love the warmth and richness of its song - and most generously my mother gave me the piano that once brought much joy to dad. Just like Thad observes so well, one is often greatly attached to a particular instrument because a loved one who has since passed on used to play it. And hearing music come alive again, music that was once played by someone who no longer is alive, can cause strong emotions to surface. Shortly after my father passed on I attended an Evgeny Kissin (sp?) concert, and when EK started playing one of my father's favorite Chopin pieces, I could no longer control myself ... (I guess in a quiet concert hall you just try and quietly blow into a handkerchief). I also remember piano lessons I took as a child in France, and reading Thad's desciptions brought back memories. The teacher I had back then was not as gifted as some other ones in other countries at drawing out my enthusiasm for this wonderful instrument. Thad's logic when looking for an appropriate teacher for his children made a lot of sense.
The Piano Shop on the Left Bank is a most evocative book and a must-have for anyone who is affected by the sounds of a piano as well as the beauty of language.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting and informative...initially
Review: The book started out on an interesting premise: the mysterious piano workshop. The first chapters are quite charming and entertaining as we get to know the main characters and their appreciation for the piano and some of its history in Western Europe, which satisfies the piano enthusiast in me. The introduction of the piano's mechanism is adequate but not very engaging, as the nature of topic, perhaps. After the focus shifted essentially to the author's social life in Paris, however, the book becomes a tiresome series of journal entries and seeming existential profundities. The characters become progressively less interesting as they're examined, but not quite human enough to induce empathy. Overall, I'm disappointed by this book's failure to deliver on its promise (to me, at least), and resorting to the formula of let's examine the Europeans and their quaint ways...
Rating:
Summary: A charming look into a usually hidden world
Review: The Piano Shop on the Left Bank is a beautifully-written book that will appeal to three different, although probably overlapping, audiences. The first audience is comprised of people who love playing the piano as adults. I recently resumed lessons after an interlude of half a lifetime, and Mr. Carhart's book expressed many of the feelings through which I have progressed in returning to pianos and to piano lessons, albeit far more elegantly than I could ever express them. The second audience is comprised of people who love pianos. I also fall into this group; I love pianos for themselves. They are unsurpassed musical instruments, and this book gives you a glimpse at their history as objects as well as their existence as music-makers. The third audience for this book is comprised of those who love to get behind the scenes in Europe, viewing a lifestyle that is hard to find (although it can be found) here in the United States. Luc, the primary craftsperson in the book, is immensely appealing both for his craft (and art) and for his perspectives on the world. He runs his piano shop as he feels it should be run, and because his customers appreciate his worth, he can do so successfully. Mr. Carhart manages to become part of the shop's world, and vividly takes the reader with him. In short, this is an immensely appealing book that makes the reader eager to rush out and find a Luc for themselves.
Rating:
Summary: Delightful!
Review: There is a class of books- of which this is one- that are neither great works of literature nor of great historical, philisophical or scientific import, yet are so delightful that you gladly make a place for them in your library. Books like Lawrence Wechsler's "The Museum of Jurassic Technology", Rinker Buck's "Flight of Passage" or John McPhee's "Oranges", that take a little corner of the world and tell a story in vivid detail. This is, nominally, a book about a little piano shop in Paris, and the author's rediscovery of his love for pianos and piano music. Pianists and musicians in general will understand, but you needn't be either to appreciate it- any more than you'd need to be a pilot to enjoy "Flight of Passage" or an orange to enjoy the McPhee book. Carhart paints such a vivid picture of the places and people he encounters that you may well find yourself imagining that you, too, are sitting in that atelier one Friday afternoon.
Rating:
Summary: Sweet Memories and Music
Review: This book is a warm and sensual experience for anyone who has ever studied piano or lived in Paris...or simply wanted to. I found myself wrapped up on the simple, daily life of a small Parisian neighborhood...engaged in sweet memories and wonderful people and along the way I learned a hell of a lot about pianos, music and the joy of rekindling childhood passions.
Rating:
Summary: Modesty, humanity, and lots of pianos
Review: This book is by a man at peace with the world, and with himself. He's an amateur pianist with limited skills, but rather than show frustration (he seems to have little of that--and he's not afraid to confess embarrassment), he uses this middle view to describe pianos as cultural objects with a range of "characters" that's almost human (and this is especially fascinating because pianos live longer than people). He makes acquaintances with pianos and the people who play, repair, and make them, and the world is a beautiful place from his gentle, civilized vantage point. Almost everyone who has ever played the piano is only mediocre or worse, so this book is likely to be extremely valuable to anyone who's been captivated by the instrument but may not necessarily be able to produce the greatest music firsthand. I recommend this book to anyone who has a little extra time.... history, technical descriptions, and a small surprise of a love story.
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