Currently reading "Guitar - An American Life" by Tim Brookes. Believe I mentioned this book several months or a year ago. It was on my must read list, so when I spotted it at Borders it was an easy sale - despite the torn cover. 

I was expecting a historical treatise of the guitar and its construction. I'm pretty big on technical books. What year was the X-brace invented? Instead what I found was a historical treatise of music in America. What happened in American music in the last four centuries which led to the guitar becoming the most widely played musical instrument ever? It was an odd mish-mash of the importation of Hawaiian culture combined with the rise of radio combined with recordings of local blues music providing unexpected income during the great depression. Who invented 'country music' and why? And how did fretted instruments completely change the composition of American music? The answers are quite interesting.

Very highly recommended.