Poking my head above the ground for a moment to point you to two noteworthy book sales. The University of California Press is holding its annual Dirt Cheap Online Sale, and it lives up to its name. Kyle Gann's Music Downtown can be had for $6.95 ($5.95 paperback), Mark Katz's Capturing Sound is available for $12.95, and there's more from Susan McClary, Simon Morrison, and other notables. Ruth Ben-Ghiat's Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922-1945 is an engrossing study of a time and place left largely unstudied and undiscussed among musicians. Also representing the critical community is the Orange County Register's Timothy Mangan, who co-edited Paul Bowles on Music with Irene Herrmann. (They've also knocked a whopping $20 off Richard Taruskin's Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, which is now an eminently affordable $175. No, I didn't forget a decimal point.)
Yale University Press is also holding a half-off sale, and they have Terry Teachout, studies of Bach's B Minor Mass, and biographies of Adorno, Kenneth Tynan (a DecSimp hero), Kafka, and Ben Franklin. Music and the books I mentioned are under the Humanities tab, reflecting a heartening belief in the Medieval Quadrivium. Or simply categorizational ease, it's hard to tell.