Reddit reviews Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original

Thelonious: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin D.G. Kelley is definitely my favorite jazz biography.

http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1439190461

Yes, the Penguin guide is fantastic for building a collection and learning more about a particular player's discography.

If you're into blogs at all, the jazz blogosphere is pretty happening as well. Ethan Iverson, pianist in The Bad Plus along with many other artists, has a particularly great blog called Do The Math.

http://dothemath.typepad.com/

kinda tangential but have you checked out this Monk biography? Its super dense with info, but really well written so you don't get bogged down.

Also does anyone else like to listen to whatever album an artist released/was working on when reading about that time in their life? I highly recommend it anyone who hasn't.

For anyone interested in learning more about Monk, this is the authoritative biography:

"Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original" https://www.amazon.com/dp/1439190461/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_HZILzbQK6NT1W

I've been a Monk obsessive since I was 16, and one great musicological discovery (I think it was in that book) was that the soft three-note dissonant combo he ends many of his songs with mimics the horn of the trains that ran past his childhood home in North Carolina. Find "Functional" from his solo album Thelonious Himself and you'll hear it throughout. https://play.google.com/music/m/Tnqpl55mpik4kf6wvldbhzc7owu?t=Functional_-_Thelonious_Monk

Edited to add: for anyone who falls in love with Monk, your next stop is Art Tatum. You won't quite hear Monk's soul but you'll get to hear what Monk would have been if he had been a technical virtuoso. Try Tatum's song "Cherokee" and you'll immediately hear it.