Whether you’re looking for some holiday gift ideas or planning to spend some downtime by the fire this winter, here’s a selection of music books we especially enjoyed this year. We suggest picking them up at your local independent bookseller.  Have we missed one of your favorites?  Let us know in the comments!

I’ll Take You There: Mavis Staples, the Staple Singers, and the March Up Freedom’s Highway
by Greg Kot
 (Scribner)

There are few artists who’ve been able to express yearning and redemption as powerfully as Mavis Staples and her family. What began as a humble family band from Mississippi turned into the soundtrack to the growing civil rights movement, eventually transitioning from gospel to protest music, soul, funk, and even disco. Journalist Greg Kot has a knack for teasing out some of the most interesting anecdotes from his subjects, as we saw at the 2014 Future of Music Summit in his interview with Harry Shearer. Mavis doesn’t disappoint on this front, with stories of collaborations with everyone from Prince and Jeff Tweedy. And Kot’s evocative descriptions of the Staples’ sprawling discography is enough to send you diving deep into their back catalog. – Kevin Erickson

Producing Country: The Inside story of the Great Recordings
by Michael Jarrett
 (Wesleyan)

Jarrett offers a wide-ranging oral history culled from a vast catalogue of interviews with legendary country producers from Chet Atkins to Allen Reynolds. Organized as a rough chronology mapping changes in recording technology and business structures, It also contains some thoughtful reflections on the permeable borders of genres, and the changing roles of producers and engineers, and the often underappreciated role they play in. Its one major shortcoming is the lack of interviews with women producers or reflection on why they remain such a minority in Nashville—I’d like to have heard from Gail Davies, or self-producing artists like Lucinda Williams. Still, it’s a valuable and edifying resource for record-makers of all genres. - KE

The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age
by Astra Taylor
 (Metropolitan)

Are there ways that the new order of digital culture replicates the inequities and power structures of the systems that came before? That’s the question tackled by Astra Taylor, an acclaimed documentary filmmaker (Zizek, Examined Life) and activist (she’s been active in the Occupy Wall Street movement, and offshoots Strike Debt/Rolling Jubilee). You may also have seen her touring as an auxiliary member of indie rock troupe Neutral Milk Hotel. These wide-ranging interests are reflected in Taylor’s book, one of the best, most balanced, and honest works about the internet I’ve read. Taylor takes the democratizing potential of the Internet seriously, but doesn’t take its utopian claims at face value. This allows her to catapult readers past silly, one dimensional questions—is the internet good or bad for musicians, filmmakers, and journalists?— to instead wrestle with more complicated realities on issues from copyright, surveillance, corporate power and patronage. For an introduction to some of the themes explored in the book, check out her conversation with Priests singer Katie Greer at the 2014 Future of Music Policy Summit. - KE

Clothes Clothes Clothes Boys Boys Boys Music Music Music: A Memoir
by Viv Albertine
(Thomas Dunne)

As lead guitarist and songwriter for The Slits, Viv Albertine’s radical approach influenced generations of musicians with a truly eclectic, inspired take on punk freedom. Her book is an extraordinarily candid chronicle, both of those early dangerous punk days, but also of her years of retreating into obscurity and family life before re-emerging for a solo career.  UK punk fans will enjoy the stories of hanging with Sid Vicious and Mick Jones, and Slits devotees will rejoice at the revelatory descriptions of that band’s internal dynamics, but even the most casual fans will find it a captivating and very personal account of an artist’s life, of overcoming the self-doubt that lingers even in the face of artistic triumph. - KE

Who We Be: The Colorization of America
by Jeff Chang
(St. Martins)

Jeff Chang is the author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, one of the most solid and comprehensive accounts of the rise of hiphop music in social and political context. Now he’s back with a new book articulating a relationship between cultural change and social change. Chang explores the stories of artists of color working to disrupt the default institutional whiteness of many different disciplines, the many resulting conflicts, and their enduring impacts. Who We Be’s scope extends far beyond music, but it’s vital reading for anyone thinking about the relationship between art and activism, and a vision for multiculturalism that feels fresh, relevant, and urgently needed.

Cowboys and Indies: The Epic History of the Record Industry
by Gareth Murphy
(Thomas Dunne)

Murphy aims to offer a comprehensive account of the industry in the US and Europe, and this story is indeed epic, not only in terms of the evolution of the recording industry, but also in terms of the narrative of the book. Cowboys and Indies is not just a historical account. Murphy’s exhaustive research is complemented with an engaging prose, which clearly portrays what a scientific, entrepreneurial, but also artistic adventure the recording industry was ever since the revolutionary invention of sound recordings. Murphy’s account highlights a cast of fascinating characters, and it’s these, individual stories, and anecdotes that make Murphy’s book as engaging as a good TV-show can be, and a worthwhile read for any scholar of music, history, and society. - Maria Teresa Roca de Togores