Bjork: There's More to Life Than This: The Stories Behind Every Song

Rating:
Summary: Bjork Fans Need This
Review: A fine overview of Bjork's career, with lots of good photos, and a track-by-track discussion of each album, beginning with her pre-teen "Bjork" effort and concluding with "Vespertine." (There's also a discussion of all B-sides and collaborations.) Mr. Gittins is apparently not a musician--he can't tell a recorder from a flute and describes a sitar as "Indian strings"--but he's otherwise well-informed and appreciative of Bjork's genius without going overboard. Highly recommended to Bjork fans.

Rating:
Summary: a fine start for a curious wannabe bjork fan
Review: I guess since I've been a Bjork fan for a while now, I was hoping to find some new insight into her songs through this book. If you want to learn the intentions and meanings behind Bjork songs, you're better off going to her website or searching online for interpretations or interviews. This book, while providing some solid background information about Bjork, does not provide too much information about the songs themselves. It seems that the author took random quotes and tried to apply them to the songs as he saw fit. The timeline is useful, and pictures are gorgeous. The descriptions for each song are not more than a couple of paragraphs each, far too short to even get an introduction for a Bjork song. It is a good collector's item--that's why I bought it. But if you're looking for some answers, like, what do those bjorkish words mean?, look somewhere else...like the 4um

Rating:
Summary: there's more to life than this
Review: my mom brought this book back for me from london, because at that time (last november) it was next to impossible to find in the states. the book looks nice on the outside. nice oversized book, with thick glossy paper. and the idea of the book is nice, the story beihnd every song + info on the cubes/gling-glo and early stuff.

however, the book does fall a little short, content wise. the information gathered is mostly pretty well known (keep in mind i am a total björk dörk :p ) but the pictures in the book totally make up for the (lack of) content! there were so many pics i have never seen before, and huge, oversized glossy pictures! i was in heaven :)

i was really hoping for more information about the sugarcubes, which is why this book didn't get a 5 star rating! they only talked about the 'cubes, and didn't get in to the meaning behind the songs.