I ended up reading this book because I started reading a different book: Gödel, Escher, Bach: an eternal golden braid by Douglas Hofstadter. Early on in G.E.B., Hofstadter refers to Bach's composition "Musikalisches Opfer." Wanting a better understanding of what was being described I decided to get a recording of "Musickalisches Opfer," but not knowing which recording was best I contacted my college friend and harpsichordist, Mahan Esfahani. He recommended two recordings to me. The first is a recording by Gustav Leonhardt originally issued as an LP in the 1970s, but now available on a CD reissue by Sony Classical in Europe. The second is an orchestral arrangement by Karl Münchinger and the Stuttgarter Kammerorchester. I got this recording on a double CD offering from Decca that also included "Die Kunst der Fuge."
Mahan also recommended Evening in the Palace of Reason for its concluding chapter that in his words is a "wonderful, concise, and 'layman's' view of Bach's particular aesthetic weltanschauung." As a musical "layman" this was perfect for me and changed the way I listened to the music. Overall the book is great for a musical novice, but only average if one considers it as a biography or history, as it attempts to provide parallel biographies of both J.S. Bach and Frederick the Great in less than 300 pages--both of which are complex lives that probably require multi-volume biographies for anything approaching completeness.