Tim Falconer is an award-winning journalist and author of three books of nonfiction, including Drive: A Road Trip through Our Complicated Affair with the Automobile and That Good Night: Ethicists, Euthanasia, and End-of-Life Care. Falconer’s writing on music and health has won a National Magazine Award and he was the subject of a radio documentary on CBC Radio’s Ideas. A resident of Toronto, he teaches magazine journalism at Ryerson University and Creative Nonfiction at the University of King’s College in Halifax.

Bad Singer: The Surprising Science of Tone Deafness and How We Hear Music

Tim Falconer — a self-confessed “bad singer” — is one of the 2.5 percent of the population afflicted with amusia. In other words, he is scientifically tone-deaf. Bad Singer chronicles Falconer’s quest to understand the brain science behind tone-deafness and his search for ways to retrain the adult brain. He is tested by numerous scientists who are as fascinated with him as he is with them. Falconer also investigates why we love music, and deconstructs what we are really hearing when we listen to it. A mix of scientific discovery, musicology and personal odyssey, Bad Singer is a fascinating, insightful and highly entertaining account from an award-winning journalist and author.