A review by alexrafinski
The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason

adventurous informative medium-paced

4.25

I read this after reading the brilliant North Woods by the same author.  The Piano Tuner was written around 20 years earlier and is a very different book.  It is enjoyable to read and I certainly came away with a bit more knowledge of Burma (as it was then called).  The book is based on quite a strange premise - that a leading army doctor/captain in Burma asked for a grand piano to be delivered and then needed someone to tune it.  I was hoping that that had actually happened in real life, but the author's note at the end suggests that it hadn't.  So I still wonder where that idea came from!  The book follows the journey of the tuner as he leave London and sails for Burma, and then eventually leaves Rangoon for the distant outpost where the captain and his piano is waiting.  There are some lovely descriptive passages and the story seems strangely believable.