David Byrne has a busy fall ahead. In addition to his upcoming album and tour with indie sensation St. Vincent, Bryne will release the new book How Music Works.

According to press materials, “in it he explores how profoundly music is shaped by its time and place, and he explains how the advent of recording technology in the twentieth century forever changed our relationship to playing, performing, and listening to music. Acting as historian and anthropologist, raconteur and social scientist, he searches for patterns—and shows how those patterns have affected his own work over the years with Talking Heads and his many collaborators, from Brian Eno to Caetano Veloso. Byrne sees music as part of a larger, almost Darwinian pattern of adaptations and responses to its cultural and physical context. His range is panoptic, taking us from Wagnerian opera houses to African villages, from his earliest high school reel-to-reel recordings to his latest work in a home music studio (and all the big studios in between). touching on the joy, the physics, and even the business of making music, How Music Works is a brainy, irresistible adventure and an impassioned argument about music’s liberating, life-affirming power.”

Byrne will support his new book with a series of readings, conversations and appearances alongside a mix of writers, musicians and personality. Those appearances include discussions with Trent Reznor, Arcade Fire’s Win Butler and Portlandia star Carrie Brownstein.

Here’s a look at David Byrne’s book tour

September 14

89.3 The Current Presents David Byrne in Conversation with Steve Seel on How Music Works
6:00 doors/7:00 discussion, History Theatre on the McNally Smith College of Music Campus
St.Paul, MN 55101

Copies of David Byrne’s new book How Music Works will be available for purchase on site. Sponsored by McNally Smith College of Music.

September 17

Chicago Tribune Press Pass: David Byrne and Bettina Richards with Greg Kot
7:00 PM, 3733 North Southport Avenue
Chicago, IL 60613
David Byrne in conversation with Bettina Richards (Thrill Jockey) and hosted by Greg Kot (Tribune critic and co-host of WBEZ’s ‘Sound Opinions’) co-sponsored by Chicago Tribune.

September 19

Harbourfront Reading Series
7:30 PM, 235 Queens Quay
Toronto, ON M5J 2G8 Canada
David Byrne in conversation with Cory Doctorow (Boing Boing, author).

September 22

Pop Montreal Festival: The Ukrainian Federation
7:30PM doors/8:00PM Discussion: 5213 Hutchison
Montreal, Quebec
David Byrne and Win Butler (Arcade Fire) in conversation at the Ukranian Federation hosted by Drawn & Quarterly and the Pop Montreal Festival.

September 24

David Byrne in conversation
Tsai Center, Boston University: 685 Commonwealth Ave
Boston, MA.

September 28

David Byrne in conversation with Greg Milner (Perfecting Sound Forever) at the Philadelphia Free Library
7:30 PM, 1901 Vine Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103

October 1

Smithsonian Institution
Baird Auditorium, 1000 Jefferson Dr SW
Washington, DC 20560.

October 8

Moody Theater: 310 Willie Nelson Blvd Austin, TX 78701. More details to come.

October 14

David Byrne in conversation with Trent Reznor
Aratani Theater: 244 South San Pedro Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012

David Byrne in conversation with Trent Reznor. Presented by the Library Foundation of Los Angeles & moderated by Josh Kun.

October 16

City Arts & Lectures
7:30 PM, Herbst Theater: 401 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94102
David Byrne in conversation with Bernie Krause (musician, author).

October 19

David Byrne in conversation with Carrie Brownstein
7:00 PM, Bagdad Theater: 3702 Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard
Portland, OR 97214
Tickets available on the website. Co-sponsored by Powells and Portland Arts & Lectures.

December 5

LIVE at the New York Public Library
The New York Public Library, Stephen A. Shwarzman Building
Fifth Ave & 42nd Street New York, NY 10018: