Slammerkin was amazing. I'm not ashamed to admit I cried at the end. It was such a tragic story, so well told. I also finsihed White Jazz by James Ellroy. He has such a strange style of writing, and his books are almost addictive. The writing style is basicaly short sentences, bursts of prose, like gunshots somehow. Anyway, the plot in this one was not quite as brilliant as in his other books, but this remains the better book of the three I've read (L.A. Confidential & The Black Dahlia). So having finished those two, I'm moving on to:
Four Letters of Love - Niall Williams
White Teeth - Zadie Smith
The Church of Dead Girls - Stephen Dobyns
Crooked - Louisa Luna
Darkest Fear - Harlan Coben
Do I read too many books at once? I sometimes like to switch between 'em - if i get tired of certain characters, I'll just read a different book for a while.

My love for jazz music seems to be overshadowing all other genres. Ken Burns, who made a PBS documentary about Jazz, says that he had little knowledge of the subject before starting the documentary, but now it's all he'll listen to. I may be the same way. I tried to listen to some cds I'd gotten recently (Ivy and Olive) but it just wasn't raw enough. I've never really craved music before, but now I do. I look forward to it, to listening to the cds I have, to hopefully building my collection, to learning more about different styles of jazz - I believe my favorite so far is bebop. By the way, if you are interested in learning more about my latest obsession, I recommend Jazz For Beginners.