The Melody of Things
On Music, Memory, and Beginning Again
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Pub Date Jan 26 2027 | Archive Date Nov 30 2026
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Description
The lyrical account of a young pianist who gave up her professional ambitions to become an amateur.
Ten years after becoming a writer, Nadia Beard experienced a strange, exhilarating longing for something she had not realized she’d missed: playing piano. Having trained seriously to become a pianist but stymied by stage fright, Beard decided to return to her beloved instrument as an amateur. The Melody of Things is a unique combination of memoir, music, and political history, as it charts Beard’s journey to study at the renowned Tbilisi Conservatoire in the former Soviet Georgia. Filled with sharp insights about the pleasures and possibilities of discipline and amateurism as an art unto itself, Beard’s book reminds us that the term “amateur” comes from the Latin “amare,” meaning, of course, to love. The Melody of Things is a gem about falling in love for a second time—with an instrument that came to reshape and reinhabit Beard’s life.
About the Author: Nadia Beard is a journalist, critic and pianist. Her writing appears in the New Yorker, Financial Times, National Geographic, and the Guardian. She lives in Milan.
Advance Praise
"Enthralling… moved me so deeply…. [Nadia Beard] has learnt to face the music, and has taught her readers how to withstand the wrong notes even as we find the melodies that sustain us." -Diane Cole - Financial Times
"So graceful and bittersweet and true." -Vincenzo Latronic, author of Perfection
"Like so many people, Nadia Beard fell away from something she loved. The Melody of Things is about her return, her rediscovery of music and her growth from a lapsed amateur pianist into genuine artistic self-confidence and generosity. It is an uplifting story, with fascinating detours and adventurous asides, that tracks with rigor and honesty what it feels like to spend hours in the practice room. Music is our most powerful avenue of self-discovery and Beard walks it alert to every twist and turn." -Philip Kennicott, author of Counterpoint: A Memoir of Bach and Mourning
"Nadia Beard has not only achieved milestones in her recovery of her love for music, but in this book, she gives us so much more: portraits of a beguiling city, a rumination on Soviet and Caucasus history, and beautiful sketches of memorable characters. It is a book that fulfills that Socratic dictum of living an examined life." -Razia Iqbal, John L. Weinberg Professor at Princeton University
"The Melody of Things is a paean to the creative act and a manifesto for the joys of looking to our past as well as our future. Nadia Beard writes with lyricism about what it means to engage seriously with art and the pleasures that come from refocusing our fractured minds." -Orlando Whitfield, author of All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud, and Fine Art
"This is a quietly passionate book about returning to an early love—the piano, and finding a new love—Georgia. The author's determination through frustrations and delights is an encouragement to all who might have played a musical instrument once to dare to take it up again." -Stephen Hough, author of Rough Ideas: Reflections on Music and More
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9781324105466 |
| PRICE | $29.99 (USD) |
| PAGES | 256 |