[50 in 365] Book 6: Lifting Shadows

This one is also going to be a weird one. The book is…

Lifting Shadows
by Rich Wilson

Lifting Shadows is the authorized biography of the band Dream Theater. If you recall, I picked it up at the Progressive Nation show in Albany and had it all signed and such. The book was really interesting. I thought I knew a lot about the history of the band but there was several periods of the time where I was really surprised about what was going on. It shocked me to learn how close they were to breaking up and calling it quits a few times.

My one complaint about this book is that the author uses the word "Ironically" a lot. As in, everything is ironic. Everything. I'm usually not terribly annoyed by bad grammar or something like that, as long as it's not horrible. But this crossed the threshold into obnoxious territory. I also started to get annoyed by how the author would describe the various albums, adding his own commentary to the descriptions of the tracks. I already know what the music sounds like…and I really don't care if the author thinks that a certain track is a classic or not. I'm reading it for the band…not the author.

Of course this one is weird because a) it's so limited in scope and b) even if you were interested it's going to be practically impossible for you to get a copy at this point. It's just a really good read for anybody who's a fan of Dream Theater, or even somebody who's heard of them and wants to look inside the way a band develops long term over a span of 20 years.