I’ve been a Brad Paisley fan for awhile.  I plowed through all of his CDs at the library and had to buy a few of my own.  So it wasn’t a surprise that I had to pick up this book, but it turned out to be even more than I thought it would be.  Diary of a Player is Paisley’s memoir of his life as a guitar player, with bits about the rest of his life sprinkled in.  I have never in my life played a guitar, so I was a bit tentative.  He writes about his guitar influences like his grandfather who gave him his first guitar and the old guys who formed his first band, sharing how these guitar players  from his early years helped him develop as a player and as a human being.  He emphasizes how music threads through the generations, connecting the past with the future and how playing the guitar has provided him with an outlet for all the joys and sorrows of life, as well as a refuge from the world.  This enjoyable book made me an even bigger Paisley fan, but it also changed the way I listen to and think about music.