The Joy of Music is Leonard Bernstein's first book, originally published as a hardcover in 1959 by Simon & Schuster. The first UK edition was published in 1960 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. It was translated into German (1961), Danish (1969), Slovenian (1977), Hebrew (1973 and 1977), Chinese (1987). The first edition was reprinted seven times and published in several further editions, including as a paperback and ebook. In the books' introduction, "The Happy Medium", Bernstein discusses the nature of music and the difficulties of writing about it.