1. The End of Early Music
Bruce Haynes, The End of Early Music, Oxford University Press, 2007
On how the 20th century lost expressive playing
2. A Performer's Guide to Baroque Music
Robert Donington, A Performer's Guide to Baroque Music, Scribner's, 1973
An excellent introduction to early performance practice
3. The Language of Music
Deryck Cooke, The Language of Music, Oxford University Press, 1959
The very best study on how melody communicates feeling
4. La Téléphone and the Universal Musical Language
David Whitwell, La Téléphone and the Universal Musical Language, Whitwell Publishing,
2012
On efforts to have music replace the world's languages
5. Music in the Medieval World
Albert Seay, Music in the Medieval World, Prentice-Hall, 1965
The best introduction to medieval music
6. A World Lit only by Fire
William Manchester, A World Lit only by Fire, Little, Brown and Company, 1992
The best introduction to Renaissance music
7. Aristotle's Children
Richard E. Rubenstein, Aristotle's Children, Harcourt, 2003
The story of the rediscovery of the ancient Greek treatises
8. James the Brother of Jesus
Robert Eisenman, James the Brother of Jesus, Viking, 1996
A great scholarly study of the first centuries of Christianity
9. Zealot
Reza Aslan, Zealot, Random House, 2013
The best modern scholarly study of who Jesus was
10. From Dawn to Decadence
Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence, HarpersCollins, 2000
A great humanistic history from 1500 to the present
