Guitar : An American Life

I heard about this book on NPR, and went right tout to get it.

What an engrossing tale. A Fylde guitar is ruined by an airline, a wife makes a promise to replace the guitar for the grieving man's 50th birthday, and the man sets out to have a guitar custom-made. In the interim, the author, Tim Brookes, describes the history of the guitar in all of its incarnations. It is a beautiful history lesson, fascinating and then oddly tense as you wait with the author through various stages of luthery from the wizard at Running Dog Guitars until the grand day the custom concert jumbo guitar is unveiled.

Absolutely excellent. Oh, plus it has an extraordinary cover - peek under the dust jacket. When I walked into work with my new treasure, all of my co-workers were fawning over the book design, then broke out into an unending discussion of guitars...it was like heaven.