The Holy Bible—I prefer the New International Version for reading and thinking, but you can’t beat the King James Version for great
words to set to music. Certainly no book has impacted my thinking and living more than this one.
Julian Jaynes— The Origins
of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind—A mouthful of a title with a mouthful of a core thesis—possibly the best crackpot
theory of all time. The basis for my 2005 piece Auguries of the Soul.
William McDonough & Michael Braungart— Cradle
to Cradle—We must listen to these men. “There is no away.”
Jerry Mander— Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television—Prescient, clear, unambiguous
R. Douglas Hofstadter— Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid—Staggering. I get it.
Charles
Rosen— The Classical Style—If I could only teach the way he writes.
Vincent Persichetti— Twentieth-Century Harmony—A book that
gave me a hard push toward becoming a composer.
Carl Sagan— Cosmos—Now out of date, but still the best writing about science
I have ever experienced. The Demon-Haunted World is also excellent.
Jared Diamond— Guns, Germs and Steel—The story of humanity in perspective.
Lawrence Kramer— Why Classical Music Still Matters—Very poignant, very true. I recommend this to all my
students.
Alex Ross— The Rest is Noise—The first look at the music of the 20th century in hindsight.
Neal Stephenson—Anathem—The first book in ages that I immediately read again. I was afraid to read other books by this author for fear of disappointment, but The Baroque Cycle is just as incredible, if not better.