Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful gift for that " detailed maticulous" friend
Review: This book is great and was very easy to read. It would make a great gift for any person that appreciates detail and enjoys a great "story line". You don't have to be a piano player to enjoy it. I found the book exceptionally enjoyable and have given it to two friends already.
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Summary: For lovers of music, piano, travel and life
Review: This is a wonderful book for anyone who loves music, and in particular, piano, as well as traveling, even if not particularly in France. The author gives a genuine and sincere account of his feelings about his life in Paris, as well as the realities of living in a foreign country, of foreign ways of doing business, forming relationships, and of course, his love of music and the piano.These loves of music and the piano are so evident, so full of life. Some people might be bored or distracted by Carhart's details regarding pianos, however, as a music lover, but one who do not even play piano, I loved reading about the details involved with the instrument. As a lover of travel, and a person who has spent considerable amounts of time in a number of foreign countries (although France is not one of them), partially so that I could learn others' ways of living, I also thoroughly enjoyed reading about real-life details of living in another country. I also enjoyed that unlike "A Year in Provence," "Under the Tuscan Sky," "A Cottage in Portugal" and many other books such as these, Carhart does not spend the entire book writing of the difficulties of getting anything done in these countries (even though it's true!). It was nice to read about other aspects of living abroad. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves music, piano and other culture's and their idiosyncracies.
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Summary: Dangerous book
Review: This is a wonderful book, but before I even finished it I visited the Steinway showroom and am now seriously considering replacing my digital Yamaha with a baby grand. Alas, it would have been cheaper if the book had only made me long to visit Paris. This book will re-awaken you appreciation of music as you learn about people's passion for making and playing pianos. I completely enjoyed it.
Rating:
Summary: For piano lovers, and others . . .
Review: This is a wonderful book. It is a fascinating weaving of information about the history and physics of pianos, French culture, especially as seen from his experiences with people he met and dealt with, and finally, the author's own young experiences with the instrument and his decision to revive that relationship with the piano decades later. I enjoyed all of three of these segments--each as much as the other. My hope is that ways are found to bring this book to the attention of audience beyond those who play piano and enjoy musid with a passion. Other than those who have been professional French-bashers in the spring of 2003, this book deserves a wider audience.
Rating: 
Summary: Read it with a glass of wine, after your trip
Review: This is certainly a fine read and will satisfy everyone from musicians to nostalgic travellers. I am fully prepared to be sympathetic to the sentimentality of this book: flagstones are my friends, fresh pastries make for a fine breakfast, and the incomporable smell of varnish and glue in a luthier's shop haunts my days. I have a wee violin shop up the road, run by a mad gnome from Manchester, who always has unforgettable lines such as, "Your cello has a flpppt, my flat has a leak, dinnae know why things like that happen to folks like *us*!" So, yes, if you're thrilled by back alley Paris and keen on the secret, almost occult life, of instrument repair, you'll enjoy this book. I was a bit disappointed by the bits that strayed into the history of the pinao; while highly informative, they were too sketchy and superficial for my taste. Granted, I respect that the author was trying to keep a balance between wistful recollection and technical observation, and I think he achieved this well. The positive thing is that this book is neither a scholarly treatise, nor an amateur's dabbling, but maintains a very readable combination of specialised knowledge with heartfelt recollection. In this way, it is as much a story of maturity, enthusiasm, and childhood choices, as it is an overview of the piano's soul. Hardcore professional musicians might sneer a bit: if you've spent your whole life struggling for your passion, you may roll your eyes at the exposé of a yuppie, living it up in Paris, who all of a sudden one day out of the heavens epiphany realises that, maybe, life is more interesting with music. Having said that, I'm more likely to think, no matter how much expertise you may have, you'll find some kindred feelings in this book. Really, I can think of three ideal readers to whom you may want to give this book as a gift: (1) your unflappable piano teacher in her white blouse and broach; (2) your father/mother/uncle who keeps slagging you for pursuing a carreer in music; (3) your friend/daughter who's about to make that first trip to the Continent, or has just returned from his/her trip. And, personally, if you want meaningful, soft afternoon reading--you'll do well having a go with this book about a man, his curiosity, and a lone piano shop. Actually, wouldn't you know but writing this review has given me the overwhelming urge to eat a baguette washed down with milky coffee.
Rating:
Summary: A Charming, Light, Musical Read
Review: This is one more offering in the tradition of Peter Mayle's books about ex-pats moving to France. But unlike Mayle, Carhart does not seek to ridicule his French hosts. He has the wholly serious goal of buying a piano and again learning to play it. (The scene where the piano is moved into Carhart's upper-story apartment on the back of a workman is unforgettable! ) After reading this charming book one wants to take piano lessons, attend master classes, to visit Paris. And above all, to read more about pianos.
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Summary: Simple Pleasures of Life/playing the piano and reading
Review: This is such an enjoyable little book to read. In addition to information on pianos and music are the stories of quiet lives lived with a satisfaction and ordinary magic about them. One of the themes is simply the pleasure of playing the piano for oneself rather than in public and especially not in the yearly recitals of childhood. The structure of the book is ideally suited to bedtime reading; chapters just the perfect length that you can actually get through one before the book hits your nose, and chapters that weave stories in alternating threads, so that your interest never lags. This is a little jewel that readers will find themselves talking about with friends, and that does not require any previous personal experience with music or pianos to enjoy fully.
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Summary: A secret world in Paris opens up to a curious piano-lover
Review: Unique and delightful
Reviewer: Joanna Daneman from Middletown, DE USA
This book may be less meaningful to you if you are not a piano player (I happen to play, myself.) But Thad Carhart includes so much atmosphere and quirky French character in his memoir "The Piano Shop" that if you like memoirs, especially about life in France, you will be as charmed as I was whether you know one note from another or not. Andre Watts, the great American pianist, once remarked that he is unable to walk in a room with a piano without going up to it and touching it. This urge is not unusual with piano lovers--most of us are pulled into any piano shop, compelled by the same love of the instrument, each one of which is as individual as a person. And this individuality is despite the fact that pianos, as Carhart points out, were one of the first mass-produced items in modern industrial society. Carhart, too, is irresistibly drawn into a mostly-shuttered piano shop in his quartier of Paris. It seems unlikely the shop is merely a piano repair studio--do they, perhaps, sell secondhand instruments? Carhart, who loves to play as an amateur, decides to find an instrument. The crusty owner will hardly divulge information. Slowly, Carhart penetrates the mysterious, very private and French world of the piano shop, and it becomes a part of his life. The shop owner Luc, his drunken tuner Jos, and all the other characters are well drawn and interesting, even tragic sometimes. The book ends up being about a lot more than pianos. This is a real treat of a book to curl up with in an armchair, perhaps with a glass of wine or a cup of tea and find yourself lost in a twisty Parisian alley, peering into dusty windows and wondering how what goes on behind the shutters of a dark Paris atelier. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED (even if you don't play piano!)
Rating:
Summary: A piano lover's delight
Review: While this book may not be for everybody, if you're like me and you love pianos you will find it delightful. It evokes wonder at everything from the craft of piano maintenance, to the excitement of hearing the personality of an instrument, to the awe of hearing a Bach or Schumann masterpiece. If you've taken lessons as an adult, you will recognize a lot of the author's experiences. Highly recommended if any of this appeals to you. Probably not recommended if it leaves you cold.
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Summary: It's not just about pianos
Review: Yes, of course this little book is a love letter to the piano. But it lives because of the people who share their lives with the instrument: an itinerant piano tuner, a self-deprecating entrepreneur, an accompanist, a teacher, and a hair-raising piano mover. It is also a love letter to Paris from a man who achieved the dream of many Americans to live and be at home in that wonderful, maddening city. I hope this book will be the first of many from this author, he writes with elegance.
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