Books that made me

Pete Anderson of Pete Lit has his own version of the The Guardian's "Books that made me" series. Michael has been asking me to make a post along these lines for weeks, so, using Pete Anderson's questions, I will.

The book I am currently reading

Charlotte Brontë's The Professor. Michael and I are on a Brontë sisters bender, which began with Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and continued with Jane Eyre. We took an unfortunate turn reading Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, an invented "backstory" about events in Jane Eyre from the perspective of the mad woman on the third floor, and are very happy to be reading Charlotte Brontë again.

The book that changed my life

What book hasn't, in some way? I could give a bookcase or two full of musical biographies, but I think that reading Joyce's Dubliners in my first semester at Juilliard was a window into a way of reading that I have continued to practice through my life. When I was a young expatriate in Vienna, I responded deeply to reading Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. Miller's The Books in My Life showed me the way to Balzac, and showed me how to find a meaningful path, book by book, as a reader.

The book I wish I’d written

I can't do much with this. If I had wanted to write a book, I would have. I still may. Who knows?

The book that had the greatest influence on my writing

The first book would have been The Catcher in the Rye because after reading it at age thirteen during the summer (and not understanding it because I was thirteen), I wrote all my letters in a voice not unlike that of Holden Caufield. But as an adult consumer of non-fiction (and a writer of far too many record reviews) I give credit to Edward T. Cone, the writer of Musical Form and Musical Performance. It is a marvel of clarity and elegance, and taught me a lot about how to write about music.

The book that is most underrated

I don't understand the concept of something being underrated. There is so much to know, and so much to read. Nobody can read everything worth reading. It would be great, for example, if more people praised Stefan Zweig's The World of Yesterday the way I do, but most people in my life have never even heard of Stefan Zweig.

The book that changed my mind

Eugen Herrigel's Zen in the Art of Archery. It showed me a new way of looking at everything.

The last book that made me cry

Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog

The last book that made me laugh

Robertson Davies's The Depford Trilogy

The book I couldn’t finish

Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet, because it sent me down emotional paths that, for me, are best not trodden. If it were not so beautifully written and so elegant in its presentation of things that ring true to the darker parts of my emotional experience, I would certainly have been able to read to the end.

The book I’m most ashamed not to have read

I can think of many books I have not yet read, but I don't feel shame about it.

The book I [would] give as a gift

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

The book I’d most like to be remembered for

I have helped musicians write books, but I haven't written any books myself. As for music, who knows? If anything I have written is played when I am no longer alive, that would be a nice thing.

My earliest reading memory

The Big Red Story Book in either kindergarten or first grade. It featured Dick, Jane, Sally, and Spot.

My comfort read

My childhood favorite: D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths