Alex Ross

The New Yorker's really excellent music critic Alex Ross has just written a very big book, And The Rest Was Noise, which gives an account of classical music in the 20th century. He's a terrific writer; I've learned quite a lot from him. He's also an unabashed geek. Example: he put up juxtaposed photos of a recent vacation on his website; one of was of a gloomy, blustery, industrial dusk in St. Paul, Minnesota, the other was palm trees and bright blue water on a sunny day in Miami. The awesome caption is, "Possessing a Sibelian mentality, I felt more at home in St. Paul." Ha ha! The loveable nerd-dom of it. (Also, mentioning you're into Sibelius is going to win me over every time).
Anyway, I definitely recommend you pick up the book, and then lend it to me when you're done so I can stop reading 15 pages, doing a whole bunch of other shit, then having to take it back to the library.
Also, check out Sibelius' 4th Symphony and you'll see what he means.