Writing Career
Levitin worked as a reporter for the Palos Verdes View Newspaper (circ. 100,000) while still in high school, and served as its temporary editor during the summers of 1975 and 1976. After leaving 415 Records in 1989, he began writing commercial articles for music industry magazines Billboard, Grammy, EQ, Mix, Music Connection, and Electronic Musician, and became a contributing writer to Billboard's Reviews section from 1992–1997. He has published more than 350 commercial articles.
He is the author of This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, (Dutton/Penguin 2006; Plume/Penguin 2007) which spent more than 12 months on the New York Times Bestseller List and the Globe and Mail Bestseller list. It was nominated for two awards (The Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Outstanding Science & Technology Writing and the Quill Award for the Best Debut Author of 2006), named one of the top books of the year by Canada's Globe and Mail and by The Independent and The Guardian, and has been translated into 16 languages. Two documentary films were based on that book, "The Music Instinct" (2009, PBS), which Levitin co-hosted with Bobby McFerrin, and "The Musical Brain" (2009, CTV/National Geographic Television) which he co-hosted with Sting.
"The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature" (Dutton/Penguin 2008) debuted on the Canadian and the New York Times bestseller lists, and was named by the Boston Herald and by Seed Magazine as one of the best books of 2008; it was also nominated for the World Technology Awards. His book sales have made Levitin the #1 bestselling scientist of the last ten years, and his television and film appearances have reached more than 50 million viewers worldwide
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