Welcome back to our 2026 Reading Challenge! The prompts we’re looking at today are all about music! Specifically, we’re looking for: A book with a musical theme (made into a musical, about music, etc.) There are so many ways that you can interpret this prompt, so let’s give you a few to start off!
- Books that were made into musicals
- Books about musicians, composers, or singers
- Books where a song, musical notation, instrument, or even a record, CD, or cassette play a role
- Nonfiction books about music
Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes)
Man of La Mancha is easily one of my favorite musicals! The story of the mad knight-errant, Don Quixote has always enchanted me (and it was a favorite of my late grandfather’s too, so that was something we shared in common). I’ll be honest, though…I’ve never read the book. But, there’s no time like the present as they say. The musical was inspired by the book Don Quixote, which tells of a rich man who loves adventure stories and romantic tales of knights so much that he reads nothing else. Soon, he starts forgoing sleep and food to get in more reading time and his brains shrivel up, leading him to think he’s really a knight. He recruits his neighbor as a squire and sets off on a series of ridiculous quests, including the famous attack on the “giants” (windmills).
The Phantom of the Opera (Gaston Leroux)
This book works for your challenge on a couple of levels. On the one hand, it’s a tale of a madman, living in the Paris Opera house, who trains a young woman to be a beautiful singer, all the while convincing her that he’s an angel sent by her dead father to keep an eye on her. Of course, we all know this story. The angel is actually a hideous recluse with concerning plans for the young singer– namely, he wants to bring her into his underground domain and make her his wife. It also works for the challenge because this book inspired a beautiful musical, and one of my all-time favorites. Perhaps you could listen to the soundtrack when you’re done reading the book?
The Album of Dr. Moreau (Daryl Gregory)
When I first heard this book’s premise, a retelling of The Island of Dr. Moreau, except Dr. Moreau is managing a boy band of human-animal hybrids, I was skeptical at best. But, it really was a spectacular book! It’s 2001, and the WyldBoyZ are the world’s hottest boy band, and definitely the world’s only genetically engineered human-animal hybrid vocal group. When their producer, Dr. M, is found murdered in his hotel room, the “boyz” become the prime suspects. Was it Bobby the ocelot (the cute one), Matt the megabat (the funny one), Tim the Pangolin (the shy one), Devin the bonobo (the romantic one), or Tusk the elephant (the smart one)? Las Vegas Detective Luce Delgado has only twenty-four hours to solve a case that goes all the way back to the secret science barge where the WyldBoyZ’ journey first began–a place they used to call home.
Music: An Illustrated History (Max Wade-Matthews)
What better way to complete a reading challenge prompt about music than by reading a book about music? And by that I mean, not a book about musicians, or a book made into a musical, but one just about the concept of music? This overview of musical studies is a great place to begin if you’re looking to learn about the topic. This illustrated reference begins with a history of music-making, posing the questions “What is music?” and “What is a musical instrument?” Each of the principal ancient civilizations is investigated, with information about key developments and musical traditions. As the orchestra evolved, so too were the instruments adapted and modified. The main focus of the book is the visual encyclopedia. The catalogue is organized according to families of instruments: strings, woodwind and brass, percussion and keyboards, as well as a section on the voice. Each family is introduced, and its members are fully described – their origins, how they developed over time, and how they are played.
Daisy Jones & the Six (Taylor Jenkins Reid)
And now we’re back to fiction! Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go-Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock and roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things. Another band getting noticed is The Six, led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road. Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend. The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies.
Beethoven’s Skull: Dark, Strange, and Fascinating Tales from the World of Classical Music and Beyond (Tim Rayborn)
Beethoven’s Skull is an unusual and often humorous survey of the many strange happenings in the history of Western classical music. Proving that good music and shocking tabloid-style stories make excellent bedfellows, it presents tales of revenge, murder, curious accidents, and strange fates that span more than two thousand years. Highlights include: a cursed song that kills those who hear it; a composer who lovingly cradles the head of Beethoven’s corpse when his remains are exhumed half a century after his death; a fifteenth-century German poet who sings of the real-life Dracula; and a dream of the devil that inspires a virtuoso violin piece. Unlike many music books that begin their histories with the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, Beethoven’s Skull takes the reader back to the world of ancient Greece and Rome, progressing through the Middle Ages and all the way into the twentieth century. It also looks at myths and legends, superstitions, and musical mysteries, detailing the ways that musicians and their peers have been rather horrible to one another over the centuries
