It’s National Buy a Musical Instrument Day! We’re both choir nerds (we play the vocal chords), so we thought it’d be fun to talk about some books that inspire musicality! These books aren’t necessarily centered around music, but they all incorporate some sort of instrument into the plot.

Bethany: Savage Hearts by Chloe Cox (BDSM romance)

This is one of many in Chloe Cox’s Club Volare series and it’s not for everyone. If you are uncomfortable with the goings on in the BDSM scene, don’t read it. Cox is careful about getting BDSM right (especially regarding consent) and her books straddle the line between hardcore and introductory. But, if you want to read about a superhot lead guitarist dom (Soren Andersson) and the submissive lawyer (Cate Kennedy) who he has hired to get him out of the lawsuits that he’s been battling since a book about his band was published, this is a good option.

Jeriann: Sabriel by Garth Nix (YA Fantasy)

I’m doing a more in-depth review of Sabriel next month, but one of the things that stood out to me is how the Abhorsens’ (think reverse necromancer) bells work to put the dead to rest. Magic is directly tied to music, and skillful application is required. I had a lot of friends in college who played in handbell choir, and I think this book would make them feel badass.

Bethany: The Selection by Kiera Cass (YA dystopian)

I reviewed this book in February, so if you’re looking for a more thorough review, check it out here. The Selection follows America, a girl with a lot of musical talents who comes from a musical/artistic family and lives in a dystopian caste system society as a member of the artist caste. She is selected from all of the girls in the kingdom to meet Prince Maxon and compete to become his princess.

Jeriann: Die Young with Me: A Memoir by Rob Rufus (Punk Rock Cancer Memoir)

My husband discovered Die Young with Me at his job at our local library when a pre-release copy came through. He spent the next few weeks reading it on his breaks and telling me about it. Rob Rufus starts a punk band with his brother in order to escape their boring small-town lives. Unfortunately, Rob gets diagnosed with cancer, and his brother continues on the road to success without him. Die Young with Me is an exploration of how passions, specifically music, can help you get through difficult times.

Bethany: Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks (non-fiction)

I had to include an Oliver Sacks book in here, because I’m seriously a huge fan of his writing style. I reviewed Sacks’s book Hallucinations in April, but for those of you who don’t know, Sacks was a British Neurologist who wrote about the brain and all of the crazy, cool, exciting things it can do. Musicophilia explores how music and the brain interacted in many of the cases he treated as a physician, including “a man struck by lightning who suddenly desires to become a pianist at the age of forty-two; an entire group of children with Williams syndrome, who are hypermusical from birth; people with ‘amusia,’ to whom a symphony sounds like the clattering of pots and pans; and a man whose memory spans only seven seconds-for everything but music.” It’ll make you think about your brain and the music that you listen to in a whole new way.

Is there a book that inspired you to get into music or another hobby? Let us know in the comments!