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What I read: May 2021

LHC#119: "How to listen to Jazz" by Ted Gioia. I guess this came from my self-improvement phase of requests. It was published in 2016, so not that old, but its pre-pandemic publication shows. There's a whole long section where he discusses the concept of virality as if the medical sense would be new to people. Interesting, though. 

I might have gone a little too hard on this one. I listened to a ton of jazz while reading it, and discovered a couple of tracks I loved, and some whole subgenres I apparently loathe. Eeew, cool jazz is so not for me. 

LHC#120: "The Country Girls Trilogy" by Edna O'Brien. Not sure if this should be one or three, but it's one volume so for here I'll count it as one. In my annual tally of books read (maintained elsewhere) I'll count it as three. Very much worth reading. It's pretty clear why it would have been banned a lot though. Wow. 

LHC #121: "The Memento" by Christy Ann Conlin. The voice in this is great. I enjoyed it very much. 

LHC #122: "The Trojan War Museum and other stories" by Ayse Papatya Busac. Short stories obviously. I really liked "The History of Girls", "The Dead", "The Gathering of Desire" and "Mysteries of the Mountain South", the rest were meh. Short story collections are like that. I think I'm better off reading a short story collection and something else at the same time. Reading short after short by the same person overloads my brain. 

I also read the last chapter (I've read all the chapters, just not this month) of a novel by this guy on the OWW. It was great fun. 

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