The Music Lesson: A spiritual search for growth through music

This book by the great musician Victor L Wooten shows us through a somewhat fantastical personal story the possibilities of personal, spiritual, and musical growth. The book reminds me somewhat of the book (not the movie) What Dreams May Come in making the somewhat fantastical events seem real. In fact, I'm not sure whether Victor believes these events occurred or not. Regardless, they made a more entertaining story and a compelling way to introduce the elements of music. Even if you're not interested in the spiritual or fantastical aspects, the lessons in the elements of music make this book worth reading for any musician.

The Predator State: How Conservatives Abondoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too

Excellent book by James K Galbraith about the fallacies of the free market and, conversely, the benefits of gov't involvement. The author claims to have written the book for a general audience, but I found it still to contain reference to unfamiliar economic terms which made some of his arguments hard to follow. There is some similarity between his views and those of Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky, but Galbraith comes much more from an economist's perspective.