Originally Posted by
dropsofjupiter
I'd also recommend Phantom by Susan Kay if you're a Phantom of the Opera fan. It's pretty hard to get a hold of because there's only a few copies printed but it's one of the best books I've ever read. It's about Eric (the Phantom) before he came to the Paris Opera house. It goes into immense detail about his experiences from childhood, his life as a deformed child prodigy in music, to his experiences as a circus freak and how he picked up all these tidbits of information along the way, illusion tricks, music, architecture, methods of assassination...it's just really incredible.