Fiction with a Musical Theme

A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. ~Leopold Stokowski

Are you an avid music lover? Maybe you play a musical instrument as an amateur, like to sing, or love listening to opera or rock songs on your radio, IPOD, or MP3. In whatever way music touches your life—either as a musician yourself, an appreciative listener, or one who enjoys interesting stories about creative personalities—you may enjoy some of these fictional titles having musical themes. This bibliography covers all kinds of music from Rock to classical.

Recorded cassette (RC), digital book (DB), braille (BR), large print (LT), described VHS videotape (DV), and described video disk (DVD) copies of these books are available from the Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library. Please contact the library to order any of these books.

Prepared by Linda Rossman, Reference Services Librarian
Perkins Braille & Talking Book Library

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway.
DB/RC 70447, BR 18138, (Available as a BARD download)
Sarajevo, 1992. A cellist plays Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor as a memorial on each of twenty-two days following a mortar attack that kills twenty-two citizens who are standing in a bread line. The music deeply affects a sniper, a father, and an older man. Inspired by historic events. 2008.

The Memorist by M. J. Rose.
DB 70625, (Available as a BARD download)
Seeking an explanation for her memories of a past life, musician Meer Logan travels to Vienna in search of a magical flute once owned by Beethoven. Journalist David Yalom assists Meer but others try to stop them. Strong language and some violence. Commercial audiobook. 2008.

Mozart's Sister by Rita Charbonnier.
DB/RC 67888, (Available as a BARD download)
Maria Anna Mozart, brilliant musician and composer, is forced by her domineering father to relinquish her performing career to teach piano and support the family and her younger brother Wolfgang’s burgeoning talent. An epistolary romance compels Maria to choose between her duty and her dreams. Originally published in Italian. 2007.

Requiem for A Mezzo: A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery by Carola Dunn.
DB 70909, (Available as a BARD download)
London, 1923. Magazine journalist Daisy Dalrymple attends a singing performance featuring her neighbor’s sister Bettina--who drops dead on stage. Daisy and Scotland Yard inspector Alec Fletcher investigate. Suspects include Bettina’s professional rivals, romantic admirers, and family members. 1996.

The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee.
DB 68609, LT 10584, (Available as a BARD download)
1952. Newlyweds Martin and Claire Pendleton arrive in Hong Kong, where Martin works for the British government and Claire teaches piano to the daughter of a wealthy Chinese family. Claire begins an affair with the family’s chauffeur, whose imprisonment during the Japanese occupation still haunts him. Violence. Bestseller. 2009.

Longing by J D Landis.
BR 14423
A fictional biography of the Romantic German composer Robert Schumann, who fell in love with brilliant pianist Clara Wieck. They married against her father’s wishes and lived in the musical world of Chopin, Liszt, Berlioz, and Mendelssohn. Describes Schumann’s sad demise in a mental asylum. 2000.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett.
RC 54190, DB 54190 (BARD Download Only)
The private performance of lyric soprano Roxane Coss entices Japanese industrialist Katsumi Hosokawa to attend a party in his honor in South America. While the audience applauds, guerrillas occupy the mansion taking everyone hostage. As the outer world recedes, relationships between captors and captives come into play. Some strong language. PEN/Faulkner Award. 2001.

The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West.
RC 54605, DB 54605 (BARD Download Only)
London, early 1900s. In a tale of eccentricity in an artistic family, the father is a writer and failing provider for his family. The mother, a former pianist, insists that music play an integral part in her children’s lives, even though one of them proves not to be gifted. 1956.

The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather.
RC 19998, LT 154
The musical talent of the daughter of a minister is recognized early, and many of the townspeople help and encourage her toward a singing career. Although she leaves Moonstone, Colorado, to study in Chicago, she retains the steadying influence of her childhood. 1915.

Music and Silence by Rose Tremain.
RC 51974
In 1629, English lute player Peter Claire, twenty-seven, arrives in Denmark to become part of King Christian IV’s Royal Orchestra. When Peter falls in love with the king’s estranged wife’s handmaiden, he realizes he has come to a place where light and dark, good and evil, and music and silence wage war. Whitbread Award. 1999.

The Ragtime Kid by Larry Karp.
RC 64376, DB 64376 (BARD Download Only)
Sedalia, Missouri; 1899. White piano-playing, ragtime-music-loving teenager Brun Campbell has left Oklahoma to study with his idol Scott Joplin. Brun discovers a body and later realizes the items he took from it incriminate Joplin. He also learns of prejudice and rivalry in the music industry. Strong language. 2006.

Rookery Blues by Jon Hassler.
BR 11344, RC 64432, DB 64432 (BARD Download Only)
During the turbulent sixties, five dissimilar professors find a common interest in music. Forming a jazz band, the Icejam Quintet, they try to enliven the small, isolated campus of Rookery State. But outside forces--the Vietnam War, union strife, and love affairs--threaten the harmony of college life. 1995.

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby.
RC 42158
Rob, who measures his life by pop songs, dropped out of college because of a failed relationship. Now in his thirties, he is shocked to be still working in a London record store, even though he owns this one. When his live-in attorney girlfriend, Laura, leaves him, he is forced to reevaluate his life, his obsession with his kind of music, and his string of relationships that just didn’t work out. Strong language and some descriptions of sex. 1995.

The Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers.
RC 35118
In the 1950s, Stuart Ressler’s cutting-edge genetic research is interrupted when he falls in love with a married member of his research team. Thirty years later, when Ressler is working in a dead-end night job, his co-worker Frank Todd suspects that the brilliant man is hiding a secret past. Todd turns to local librarian Jan O’Deigh for help, and another romance begins. Jan tells the two alternating stories. Explicit descriptions of sex. 1991.

Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkuhn as Told by a Friend by Thomas Mann.
RC 50209
Mann’s modern reworking of the Faust legend occurs in the decades preceding World War II in Germany. Portrays the tragedy of a composer who loses his capacity for compassion in exchange for gaining musical inspiration. New translation by the award-winning John E. Woods. 1947.

Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro.
DB 71863
In Process. Tales of musicians on the wane, with several set in Venice, by the author of The Remains of the Day (DB 30751). In the title piece Steve, an underappreciated saxophonist, undergoes cosmetic surgery with hopes that a handsome face will jump-start his career. Some strong language. 2009.

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.
DB 71810
In Process. The members of a fictional 1980s San Francisco punk band, along with their groupies, enjoy temporary fame and settle into middle age. Sasha, a secretary and kleptomaniac, and her music-producer boss Bennie Salazar, the former bass player, self-destruct before seeking redemption. Strong language and some violence. Pulitzer Prize. 2010.

Eat the Document by Dana Spiotta.
RC 64681, DB 64681 (BARD Download Only)
In 1972, radical war protestor Mary Whittaker and her lover Bobby Desoto become fugitives and separate after a bombing turns deadly. In Seattle in 2000, widow Mary’s teenage son Jason, an anticorporate activist, uncovers his mother’s deadly secret and finds Bobby for her. Strong language. National Book Award finalist. 2006.

An Equal Music by Vikram Seth.
RC 48746
Violinist Michael Holme, age thirty-seven, is dedicated to his chamber quartet and teaching when he finds the lost love of his youth, pianist Julia McNicholl, now married and a mother. While renewing their relationship, they explore the changes of ten years apart, including Julia’s growing deafness. 1999.

Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie.
RC 41962 DB 41962 (BARD Download Only)
Thomas Builds-the-Fire is an unlikely rock band leader: he is a little goofy looking and is kind and considerate. But he has the guitar of blues great Robert Johnson, and its music compels others to join the group Coyote Springs. The band’s tale includes some wild stories about others in the Spokane tribe and is told with wry humor, mysticism, and warmth. Some strong language and some descriptions of sex. 1995.

Cassie Loves Beethoven by Alan Arkin.
RC 53601, JL 486
Hallie and David Kennedy are disappointed when their new cow, Cassie, doesn’t give any milk. Their discovery that Cassie loves listening to Beethoven’s music on the radio changes everything. Not only can she talk, she wants to play music herself. For grades 3-6. 2000.

The Other Side of the Door: A Novel of Suspense by Nicci French.
DB 71062 (Available as a BARD download)
London. Singer Bonnie Graham discovers the body of Hayden, her secret lover and fellow band member, and enlists the help of a friend to cover up the death. Repercussions occur involving the other musicians, who have complicated relationships from the past. Strong language, descriptions of sex, and some violence. Commercial audiobook. 2010.

Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres.
RC 39551
Pelagia, daughter of Dr. Iannis on the Greek island of Cephallonia, is the central figure in a story that begins shortly before World War II. As Captain Corelli, a member of the Italian occupation forces that invade the island, and Mandras, a local fisherman, vie for Pelagia’s affection, the arrival of Nazi and Communist troops turns the placid island into a quagmire. And, for Pelagia, it is more than a test of endurance. Some strong language. 1994.

Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux.
RC 27821, BR 7266, DV 597, DVD 738
The story of a disfigured musician hiding in the labyrinth of the Paris Opera House. Known as the Phantom of the Opera, he masterminds a series of mysterious and terrifying events to further the career of a beautiful young singer. 1986.