After reading Judi Dench’s Shakespeare, I went the other way on the read-or-listen question with Every Good Boy Does Fine by Jeremy Denk - part memoir, part music writing by.a concert pianist I'd never heard of but now feel I know in a strangely intimate way. Denk is my contemporary -- we were actually going to college in the Midwest at the same time -- but worlds beyond me in the hugeness of his talent and brains. Still, I sense a kind of kinship as I listen to his story of growth and mistakes and discovery. 

Music helped to comfort him during a difficult upbringing with extremely unhappy and ill-matched parents, and allowed him to get away into a wider world that turned out to offer its own kinds of challenges. He seems to have an incredible recall of every music teacher and lesson he ever had, and writes beautifully about all kinds of pieces, articulating profound, eloquent messages that manage to also be down-to-earth and often humorous. 

Denk demonstrates some passages on the audio, which is why I decided to listen, but I wish there had been many more audio examples (I'll have to look up the playlist). This is a book that will only really appeal to avid music lovers, particularly piano aficionados, but for these it provides much insight into making life more musical -- that is, more harmonious, more fluent, more attentive, more joyful, encompassing the gifts of harmony, melody and rhythm that Denk explores.