Songs of America

All around enjoyable book about music and American history and how they influenced each other. I was afraid it would both be primarily about country music (what I think of today when I think of patriotic music unfortunately) and also right-leaning (again, because of the unfortunate implications of the word patriotism today and also country music), but it was neither! Honestly Tim McGraw was such a side note (literally, he contributed a few side notes in each chapter) and there wasn't much about country music specifically. I've got nothing against country music, but I don't want to read a whole book about the history of it :)

A whole gamut of music genres are explored during their respective beginnings in American history, from the Revolutionary War to today. I enjoyed learning the history of our national anthem, the history of American folk music, and so much more.

I am not typically a reader of nonfiction and I'm trying to change that. This is an excellent book to start that journey - it was never dry, never preachy, and moved at a great pace.