The Piano Tuner

by Daniel Mason

It’s a first novel, and it’s extraordinarily original and interesting. It’s set in the southern Shan States in 1886 and it’s about Edgar Drake who gets a call from someone at the War Office saying would he come to see him about going out to Burma to tune an Erard, which is the rarest of all pianos. Daniel Mason’s really got the whole thing about the myths of Burma, which are so important. There was not a dull moment for me in this book: I loved it, and it has such a lot about the atmosphere of Burma.