‘Burning Down the House: Talking Heads and the New York Scene That Transformed Rock,’ Jonathan Gould

David Byrne told Rolling Stone in no uncertain terms this summer that Talking Heads would not be reuniting. But disappointed fans of the groundbreaking New York art-rock band can still revisit the glory years in Jonathan Gould’s extraordinary Burning Down the House. The book chronicles Talking Heads’ origins in the East Village in the Seventies all the way through their mainstream success and eventual dissolution. But Gould also succeeds in providing a snapshot of a long-ago New York City, where the future was bleak, and crime and unrest waited just outside the doors of CBGB’s. That the band was able to find the beauty in that environment and transform it into both avant-garde art and radio-ready rock is what makes their story so fascinating. —J.H.