The gift of giving is welcome year-round, but perhaps never more than as the holidays approach. Our array of top picks should help brighten the season.
“The Philosophy of Modern Song” by Bob Dylan: Twelve years in the making, this 360-page book is Bob Dylan’s richly textured valentine to more than 60 of the songwriters and singers he most admires. They range from Hank Williams and Little Richard to Elvis Costello and Rodgers & Hart — and Dylan’s insights about music, culture and life at large are absorbing. His views of women are another matter. In one chapter, he enthusiastically endorses the potential benefits of polygamist marriage. $45. Available at bookstores and Amazon
John Adams, “Collected Works”: From concertos, chamber works and symphonies to choral works, operettas and wildly ambitious operas, John Adams has distinguished himself as pne of America’s most prolific and singular living composers. This comprehensive box set includes 39 CDs and a Blu-ray disc — the latter featuring his groundbreaking 1987 opera, “Nixon in China” — that span Adams’ five-decade recording career. It’s an unusually deep, and often dizzying, dive. $131.60. Available at record stores and Amazon
