Well, after reading a fairly inconsequential new novel set in the classical music world at the request of a fellow editor at one of my jobs (Christopher Miller's 'Simon Silber,' which pretty shamelessly borrows its narrative conceit from Nabokov's 'Pale Fire') and a brief, restorative dose of Philip K. Dick ('Ubik,' 'Galactic Pot-Healer,' 'A Scanner Darkly'), I've been deeply immersed lately in big, heavy, profound composer biographies. For those interested in the subject matter, I can't recommend Maynard Solomon's 'Beethoven' and 'Mozart: A Life' highly enough. The musicology is sound, and the psychological insight is illuminating in the extreme. Currently I'm about 100 pages into Jan Swafford's 'Johannes Brahms.' On the horizon: Frances FitzGerald's 'Way Out There in the Blue' (a study of the Reagan Administration's disfunction set against its backing of the original 'Star Wars' missile defense plan), Jonathan Franzen's 'The Corrections,' and the first four issues of Los Bros Hernandez's new Love and Rockets series, which I only just discovered today. Steve Smith ssmith36@sprynet.com NP - X, "Left & Right," 'See How We Are' (Rhino)