Recommendations

For whatever it's worth, I've added several new selections to my page of recommended CDs. The first twenty or so are in the running for my best-of-the-year list. My colleagues at the New York Times have supplied gift-buying suggestions; I'd endorse a number of these, especially Tony Tommasini's choice of the Virgil Thomson Library of America edition. Some other recent music books of note: Mark Berry's After Wagner, Nicholas Mathew's Political Beethoven, Susan Tomes's Sleeping in Temples, Mark Evan Bonds's Absolute Music, Chris Walton's Lies and Epiphanies, and Mina Yang's Planet Beethoven. I have yet to see James Klosty's John Cage Was, but reliable sources report that it's delightful.