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Hi @Aaron_Bob,

I think the series of Cambridge Assignments in Music great starting point. Many books under the series introduce crucial matters succinctly. "General Musicianship" ofc is about general musicianship (lol what a trash explanation), "History of Music" provides basic western music history outline, "Form and Design" covers the basics of musical forms. We use these books when I was in my high school attending music lessons.

i myself though start with the approach of form since I love that when I was young. I just find books (in Chinese) on different forms and love it.

Henry

I'm inclined to agree with Henry, a book on the history of music is probably the most likely source without masses of reading to deal with what's really a simple subject. There is a book titled "The Form of Music" by William Cole: "A concise guide to musical structures of the tonal era. The text is illustrated with many music examples," says the blurb. Another one by Wallace Berry: "Form in music."

I can't recommend them as I haven't read them but perhaps there are reviews.

The problem is there's almost nothing complex about these forms: Sonata form: the various "subjects" (themes), bridge passages, development, recapitulation, coda, etc., and some of these books will contain copious examples when really, after sussing the first example, the "student" should be able to analyse a classical work themselves. Get the jargon under ones belt then apply it to (e.g.) Mozart's Sonata in C or Eine Kleine Nachtmusik; or Beethoven's Symphony No. 2. Of course there are exceptions but beyond finding out "how a composer did it" there's little point in analysing exceptions to get to a generalisation. 

Forms like Sonata Form, Rondo etc., are quite well defined on the web. This may be enough.

As for composing beyond the classical, it's as long as it's broad. As Henry says you may be looking at individual composers or genres (e.g. the dodecaphonic era, Schönberg and Webern). Impressionism: Debussy.

I agree with @Quinn. I think listening more music is more important than reading music books. Of course it's important to read them but you first have to have some music materials in your brain to make good use of the books which analyze and group them. I discover Sonata form when I listen to the 3rd movement of Moonlight sonata and find the recapitulation having the same material as in the exposition but in different keys, then I start to discover why. I think in music practice always comes first and ranks first. Even Caplin's theory on sentence structure and period have many exceptions too since no theory can include and explain everything.

Henry