Oooh -- Aziraphale and Crowley.  It's very simple:

* The eternal teenager inside me roots for Crowley.  I don't think I'll ever outgrow tall, dark and handsome bad boys who aren't really bad at heart.

* The book lover inside me roots for Aziraphale.  I mean, how could any book lover not root for the owner of a bookstore?

And of course, however slick I may find this year's screen adaptation, there is absolutely no question that David Tennant and Martin Sheen are Crowley and Aziraphale.

Then again, by way of decidedly more than a side note, I also root for Agnes -- far and away the most kick-ass of all the book's female characters.

(Task: In Terry Pratchett’s and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens, who do you root more for: Aziraphale or Crowley?  Or another character?  (And in each case: why?))

In no particular order, books (of all genres, except for artist biographies)* that I love where music plays an important role:

Thomas Mann: Dr. Faustus

Mann's gut-punch take on Faustian bargains; in this instance, by a composer who pays the price of syphilis-induced madness for a few years of success -- and whose deal with the devil simultaneously symbolizes that of the German people with Adolf Hitler.

Peter Shaffer: Amadeus

The play that reached an even wider audience when adapted for the screen by Miloš Forman: all about the punk rock genius of classical music and his rival, the "patron saint of mediocrity", Antonio Salieri.

Martin Goldsmith: The Inextinguishable Symphony

Goldsmith's biography of his musician parents (and their families), who met in Nazi Germany and, after much hardship, eventually managed to emigrate to the U.S. and establish a new life for themselves and their children there.

Colum McCann: Dancer

McCann's novelized biography of Rudolf Nureyev -- from the time before McCann moved to the U.S. and went all politically correct.  Lyrical, muscular and visually powerful prose to match the art of its protagonist.

Sharon Maas: Speech of Angels

The story of a musically gifted orphan who is taken to Europe from the streets of Bombay and has to find out who she is (Indian, European or ...?) and what exactly music means to her life. 

Ellis Peters: The Sanctuary Sparrow

A young musician takes sanctuary in the abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul after having falsely been accused of murder, and it is up to Brother Cadfael to find out what really happened.

Peter Grainger: An Accidental Death

Music may not exactly be central to the mystery, but blues music is definitely key to the protagonist's (D.C. Smith's) personality.

Anne Rice: Cry to Heaven and Violin

Cry to Heaven, a novel set in the world of the baroque castrati, just might be the best thing Rice ever wrote (when she was still listening to her editors).  Violin was the last book of hers that I liked; it occasionally borders on the melodramatic, but the translation of the (autobiographically-based) mental anguish of losing a loved one into music is by and large very well done.

... and Ngaio Marsh's mysteries set either in the world of opera or otherwise involving (performances set to) music:

     * Overture to Death

     * Death and the Dancing Footman

     * Off With His Head (aka Death of a Fool)

     * Photo Finish

Honorary mention to two movies (and screenplays) focusing on music:

     * Jane Campion: Piano

     * Andrée Corbiau: Farinelli

... and to the movies which I discovered and / or love twice as much solely because Mark Knopfler (fomerly of Dire Straits) wrote the score:

     * Local Hero

     * The Princess Bride

     * Cal

_______________

* If I'd include artist and composer biographies, this list would be endless.

(Task: Music is an important part of a Kwanzaa celebration.  Which is / are your favorite book(s) where music plays an important role in the plot?)

Hmmm.  Until I read Pyramids two months ago, this one would have been a no-brainer.  Then I met You Bastard ...

OK.  This may be slightly unfair, since Granny simply gets more page time than You Bastard, but:

1. Granny Weatherwax

2.  Runners-up, on an equal footing:

     * You Bastard

     * DEATH

     * Angua

     * HEX

     * The Librarian

Total badasses and hilariously funny, the lot of them -- and all of them can expose humanity's (and society's) utter inanity more effectively with a single word, facial expression or gesture than most other characters even by Pratchett himself.

ETA: AND the Librarian of course, for all of the above reasons.  How could I possibly forget the awesome Librarian of Unseen University?!

(Task: Who is your favorite Discworld character and why?)

I frankly think most of the better-known real life stories about such "moonlightings" are unproven myths, so I'm going to keep it straight to fiction:

1. Arthur Conan Doyle: A Scandal in Bohemia and The Illustrious Client

Representatives of the British government and nobility ordinarily don't have a problem showing up in Holmes's rooms in their own person, but when it comes to royalty, things are different: The King of Bohemia initially shows up pretending to be a certain Count Von Kramm (OK, still nobility, but from a hereditary king's perspective, almost as lowly as a commoner); and while we never actually learn the identity of the "illustrious client" sending an emissary to Holmes in the other story, Watson implies at the end that the client in question was none other than King Edward VII.

2. Terry Pratchett: Wyrd Sisters

A switcheroo turning a prince into an actor and, eventually, the Duke's fool into the new ruler.  Also one of the funniest books in the entire Discworld series (and a brilliant spoof on Shakespeare's Macbeth and Hamlet).

3. J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings

Aragorn, rightful heir to the throne of Gondor, bides his time as a ranger for the better part of the trilogy.

4. Mark Twain: The Prince and the Pauper

Henry VIII's son, Prince Edward VI, and a young boy named Tom Canty switch places for a while, and the experience of being exposed to Tom's miserable life and the brutality of his alcoholic father has (as Twain would have it) a salutary effect on Edward's understanding of class issues and sense of justice, once he is crowned king.

5. C.S. Lewis: The Horse and His Boy

The titular "Boy" is Shasta, who has grown up as a fisherman's son, but after escaping from his ruffian adoptive father and numerous subsequent adventures is eventually revealed as the son and heir to the king of one of Narnia's neighboring countries.

6. Jennifer Estep: Kill the Queen

Evil princess massacres her mother (the queen) and her entire court; thus her "poor cousin" (who is actually next in line for the throne) hides with a band of gladiators, learns to fight, and eventually faces down the evil princess to take her throne for herself.

7. William Shakespeare: As You Like It, Pericles, The Winter's Tale, and Cymbeline

In As You Like It, Rosalind, the exiled daughter of the regining duke (Duke Senior) masquerades as a page for the better part of the play.

In Pericles, the titular Prince of Tyre's daughter Marina is kidnapped and sold to the owners of a brothel (where she manages to keep her virginity by lecturing the customers on their sinful ways ... sigh.  Really, Will?)

In The Winter's Tale, the Sicilian royal couple's daughter Perdita is raised by a shepherd who has found her bundled up as a baby after she had been abducted from the palace.

In Cymbeline, the eponymous king's daughter Imogen also disguises as a page at one point.

Honorary mentions:

1. Dorothy L. Sayers: Have His Carcase

A commoner is bamboozled into falsely believing himself a member of the House of Romanov.

2. Alexandre Dumas: The Man in the Iron Mask; and Anthony Hope: The Prisoner of Zenda

The rightful heir to the throne is kidnapped and replaced by a doppelgänger (but the kidnapped royal is not passed off as a commoner).

3. Roman Holiday (movie)

I'm not much into romance, but Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck are such a treat they just have to make an appearance on this list.

(Task: Towards the end of the 17^th century, there was a Russian apprentice carpenter and shipwright going by the name Peter Mikhailov in the Dutch town of Zaandam (and later in Amsterdam), who eventually turned out to be none other than Tsar Peter the Great, whose great interest in the craft would become pivotal to his programs for the build-up of the Russian navy and naval commerce.

So: Tell us about a favorite book, either nonfiction history (demonstrably true facts, please, no conspiracy theories or unproven conjecture) or fiction – all genres, not limited to historical fiction –, dealing with a member of royalty “moonlighting” as a commoner.)

For this task, I think I'm going with some of the great classics that helped establish the hero / villain dichotomy ... as well as its recently most successful reincarnation:

1. Sherlock Holmes vs. Dr. Moriarty (and in pastiches, vs. everybody from Jack the Ripper to Count Dracula ... as well as ... really just everything, including boredom, as BT just reminded us)

2. The Four Musketeers vs. Cardinal Richelieu and Milady

3. Edmond Dantès aka The Count of Monte Cristo vs. the conspirators Mondego, Villefort and Danglars

4. The Hobbits, Gandalf and The Fellowship of the Ring vs. The One Ring, Sauron and Saruman

5. Harry Potter and his friends vs. Lord Voldemort and the Deatheaters