 | The Lives of the Great Composers by Harold C. Schonberg
Buy new: $23.10 / Used from: $9.95 A classic. Wonderful reading, informative, delightfully opinionated. Read this cover-to-cover. Only flaw is his underappreciation of Bruckner and Mahler. Would love to read lengthy chapters in Schonberg's style on both of these titans. Otherwise this is a masterpiece of biography.
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 | The Essential Canon of Classical Music by David Dubal
Buy new: $16.50 / Used from: $4.40 This one's been my bible for several years. Dubal writes authoritatively and passionately on virtually every composer of note. Strikes the perfect balance between great reading and quick reference guide. After years of use, I've found that I keep coming back to this again and again to take Dubal's advice or share his enthusiasm. If I had to suggest only one book on classical music, this is it.
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 | The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection : The 350 Essential Works by Ted Libbey
Buy new: $14.35 / Used from: $0.49 Organized by genre/form (orchestral music, concertos, chamber music, etc.) with short articles that focus more on the works than the composers themselves, though illustrations and marginalia provide lots of intriguing anecdotal material about the world of performance. Libbey helpfully discusses recommended recordings as well. A very practical reference guide, a great companion to Dubal's book.
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 | The Symphony: A Listener's Guide by Michael Steinberg
Buy new: $27.89 / Used from: $14.48 Great buy for anyone interested specifically in the form. Steinbergs technical writing is more in-depth than the other books on this list but not incomprehensible to the attentive amateur. Even if you can't read music or have no formal training, sitting with this book while listening will aid your understanding of structure, technique and sonata form.
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 | The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross
Buy new: $12.24 / Used from: $5.44 I can't praise Ross enough. This is a brilliant book, a masterful history of the twentieth century through the lens of its composers and music scenes, covering Paris, Weimar, the Soviets, the US, the Third Reich and more. From Strauss and Mahler to Adams and Reich. If anyone can find a book like this that focuses on the nineteenth century, please let me know!
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 | 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die
Buy new: $24.39 / Used from: $19.99 This tome hits on many an obscure work and recording alongside all the essentials. (Berwald's symphonies get their own page, for example.) From Hildegard to 2004. Arranged chronologically by work, the book as a whole gives an interesting perspective on the development of music through the centuries. Great for beginners or completists.
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 | Classical Music by Phil G. Goulding
Buy new: $13.50 / Used from: $0.49 This one is just fun. For the 'unwashed' as Goulding puts it. Opinionated, direct, at times hilarious. His methodology for ranking the composers is bound to irk some but, taken with a grain of salt, his scheme is helpful. It's nice to see an outwardly anti-snob book on classical music and opera. His TICKET TO THE OPERA is fun, too.
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