One I would only recommend to extreme academics, as it is written by an extreme academic, is "Flowing Tides - History and Memory in an Irish Soundscape" by Gearoid O hAllmhurain. He is an Irish musician, from Co Clare, who plays a number of instruments and was formerly Jefferson Smurfit Chair of Irish Studies and Professor of Music at the University of Missouri-St Louis. He is also the inaugural holder of the bilingual Johnson Chair in Quebec and Canadian Irish Studies at Concordia University in Montreal. The book is recommended by Martin Hayes among others.
My husband found a copy in mint condition in a charity shop, and knowing my interest in Irish music, bought it for me. Now I consider myself reasonable well educated, but it is VERY HARD WORK reading this book. SOO many long words, some I didn't even know existed. Seems like the author has swallowed a dictionary and a thesaurus all in one: no doubt he's brilliant at Scrabble! So far, I have struggled to reach page 118 out of 249. There then follow a further 50 pages of Appendices, Notes, Lists, References......
Apologies if the author is reading this, but really.....it could have been so much more interesting if couched in far plainer language and so much more accessible! Has anyone else read it?
Here's a short extract to illustrate what I'm on about:
"Using Appadurai's prismatic scapes as barometers of "longue duree" change, it is evident that Clare's traditional soundscape is significantly less peripheral than previously imagined. Music rights and ownership, detraditionalization, attritional and transformative media ecologies, topographical metamorphoses, and political and aesthetic evolution are paradigms that resonate in eveolving soundscapes across the globe....."