My Monticello
Fiction
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My Monticello
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About this listen
In a daring and fierce debut work of fiction - the likes of which comes along once in a generation - Virginia’s landscapes, emblems, and Thomas Jefferson’s historic plantation set the stage for a cast of unforgettable characters fighting for their right to exist in America.
A young woman descended from Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings driven from her neighborhood by a White militia. A university professor studying racism by conducting a secret social experiment on his own son. A single mother desperate to buy her first home even as the world hurtles toward catastrophe. Each fighting to survive in America.
Tough-minded, vulnerable, and brave, Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s precisely imagined debut explores burdened inheritances and extraordinary pursuits of belonging. Set in the near future, the eponymous novella, "My Monticello", tells of a diverse group of Charlottesville neighbors fleeing violent White supremacists. Led by Da’Naisha, a young Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, they seek refuge in Jefferson’s historic plantation home in a desperate attempt to outlive the long-foretold racial and environmental unravelling within the nation.
In “Control Negro”, hailed by Roxane Gay as “one hell of story”, a university professor devotes himself to the study of racism and the development of ACMs (average American Caucasian males) by clinically observing his own son from birth in order to “painstakingly mark the route of this Black child, too, one whom I could prove was so strikingly decent and true that America could not find fault in him unless we as a nation had projected it there”. Johnson’s characters all seek out home as a place and an internal state, whether in the form of a Nigerian widower who immigrates to a meager existence in the city of Alexandria, finding himself adrift; a young mixed-race woman who adopts a new tongue and name to escape the landscapes of rural Virginia and her family; or a single mother who seeks salvation through “Buying a House Ahead of the Apocalypse”.
United by these characters’ relentless struggles against reality and fate, My Monticello is a formidable collection that bears witness to this country’s legacies and announces the arrival of a wildly original new voice in American fiction.
"A group of talented narrators deliver these short stories set in Virginia, which focus on the lives of African Americans." (AudioFile Earphone Award Winner)
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt and Company
©2021 Jocelyn Nicole Johnson (P)2021 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
2021, Christian Science Monitor Best Books of the Year
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2021, Time Magazine Best Books of the Year
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2021, NPR Best Book of the Year
2021, Washington Post Best Books of the Year
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 71
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Story4 out of 5 stars 72
What if the end times allowed people to see and build the world anew? This is the landscape that Kimi Eisele creates in her surprising and original debut novel. Evoking the spirit of such monumental love stories as Cold Mountain and the creative vision of novels like Station Eleven, The Lightest Object in the Universe tells the story of what happens after the global economy collapses and the electrical grid goes down.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Don't waste your time.......
- By Chester Johnson on 07-18-19
By: Kimi Eisele
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The Parted Earth
- By: Anjali Enjeti
- Narrated by: Deepti Gupta
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 99
Spanning more than half a century and cities from New Delhi to Atlanta, Anjali Enjeti’s debut is a heartfelt and human portrait of the long shadow of the partition of the Indian subcontinent on the lives of three generations.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Riveting
- By MSE on 05-14-21
By: Anjali Enjeti
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A Lush and Seething Hell
- Two Tales of Cosmic Horror
- By: John Hornor Jacobs
- Narrated by: Almarie Guerra, MacLeod Andrews
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 427
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 377
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Story4 out of 5 stars 378
The award-winning and critically-acclaimed master of horror returns with a pair of chilling tales - both never-before-published in print or audio - that examine the violence and depravity of the human condition. Bringing together his acclaimed novella The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky and an all-new short novel My Heart Struck Sorrow, John Hornor Jacobs turns his fertile imagination to the evil that breeds within the human soul.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Great idea, tarnished by modern politics
- By Phil on 04-28-21
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The Past Is Never
- A Novel
- By: Tiffany Quay Tyson
- Narrated by: Devon Sorvari
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 64
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4 out of 5 stars 59
Siblings Bert, Willet, and Pansy know better than to go swimming at the old rock quarry. According to their father, it's the Devil's place, a place that's been cursed and forgotten. But Mississippi Delta summer days are scorching hot, and they can't resist cooling off in the dark, bottomless water - until the day six-year-old Pansy vanishes...not drowned, not lost, simply gone. When their father disappears as well, Bert and Willet leave their childhoods behind to try and hold their broken family together.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Intriguing Southern gothic tale
- By Robert Jason on 03-11-20
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We Begin at the End
- By: Chris Whitaker
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,125
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,857
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,845
Duchess Day Radley is a 13-year-old self-proclaimed outlaw. Rules are for other people. She is the fierce protector of her five-year-old brother, Robin, and the parent to her mother, Star, a single mom incapable of taking care of herself, let alone her two kids. Walk has never left the coastal California town where he and Star grew up. He may have become the chief of police, but he’s still trying to heal the old wound of having given the testimony that sent his best friend, Vincent King, to prison decades before. And he's in overdrive protecting Duchess and her brother.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Horrible narrator in this audible book
- By M. patton on 03-03-21
By: Chris Whitaker
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The Saturday Night Ghost Club
- A Novel
- By: Craig Davidson
- Narrated by: Corey Brill
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 339
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 298
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 298
Growing up in 1980s Niagara Falls - a seedy but magical, slightly haunted place - Jake Baker spends most of his time with his uncle Calvin, a kind but eccentric enthusiast of occult artifacts and conspiracy theories. The summer Jake turns 12, he befriends a pair of siblings new to town, and so Calvin decides to initiate them all into the "Saturday Night Ghost Club." But as the summer goes on, what begins as a seemingly light-hearted project may ultimately uncover more than any of its members had imagined.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Emotionless
- By Noura on 10-18-20
By: Craig Davidson
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I Am Not Who You Think I Am
- By: Eric Rickstad
- Narrated by: Steven Weber
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 167
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 150
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Story4 out of 5 stars 150
Wayland Maynard is just eight years old when he sees his father kill himself, finds a note that reads I am not who you think I am, and is left reeling with grief and shock. Who was his father if not the loving man Wayland knew? Terrified, Wayland keeps the note a secret, but his reasons for being afraid are just beginning.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Dear Steven Weber,
- By Julie Ann on 10-07-21
By: Eric Rickstad
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Godshot
- A Novel
- By: Chelsea Bieker
- Narrated by: Lauren Ezzo
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 180
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 162
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Story4 out of 5 stars 162
Drought has settled on the town of Peaches, California. The area of the Central Valley where fourteen-year-old Lacey May and her alcoholic mother live was once an agricultural paradise. Now it's an environmental disaster, a place of cracked earth and barren raisin farms. In their desperation, residents have turned to a cult leader named Pastor Vern for guidance. He promises, through secret "assignments," to bring the rain everybody is praying for.
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4 out of 5 stars
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flawless novel, not the best narration
- By Adrienne on 05-05-20
By: Chelsea Bieker
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Without a Map
- A Memoir
- By: Meredith Hall
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 55
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Story4 out of 5 stars 53
Meredith Hall's moving but unsentimental memoir begins in 1965, when she becomes pregnant at sixteen. Shunned by her insular New Hampshire community, she is then kicked out of the house by her mother. Her father and stepmother reluctantly take her in, hiding her before they finally banish her altogether. After giving her baby up for adoption, Hall wanders recklessly through the Middle East, where she survives by selling her possessions and finally her blood.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Not Your Average "16 and Pregnant"
- By Susie on 12-11-12
By: Meredith Hall
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Trashlands
- By: Alison Stine
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
A few generations from now, the coastlines of the continent have been redrawn by floods and tides. Global powers have agreed to not produce any new plastics, and what is left has become valuable: Garbage is currency. In the region-wide junkyard that Appalachia has become, Coral is a “plucker", pulling plastic from the rivers and woods. She’s stuck in Trashlands, a dump named for the strip club at its edge, where the local women dance for an endless loop of strangers and the club's violent owner rules as unofficial mayor.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Trashlands
- By Richard W. Carlson on 01-10-23
By: Alison Stine
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Creatures of Passage
- By: Morowa Yejidé
- Narrated by: Morowa Yejidé
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 106
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 106
Nephthys Kinwell is a taxi driver of sorts in Washington, DC, ferrying passengers in a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere with a ghost in the trunk. Endless rides and alcohol help her manage her grief over the death of her twin brother, Osiris, who was murdered and dumped in the Anacostia River. Unknown to Nephthys when the novel opens in 1977, her estranged great-nephew, 10-year-old Dash, is finding himself drawn to the banks of that very same river. It is there that Dash has charmed conversations with a mysterious figure he calls the "River Man".
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5 out of 5 stars
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This is the one
- By just_watching on 04-27-21
By: Morowa Yejidé
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Violet
- By: Scott Thomas
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 152
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 133
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Story4 out of 5 stars 134
For many children, the summer of 1988 was filled with sunshine and laughter. But for ten-year-old Kris Barlow, it was her chance to say goodbye to her dying mother. Three decades later, loss returns - her husband killed in a car accident. And so, Kris goes home to the place where she first knew pain - to that summer house overlooking the crystal waters of Lost Lake. It’s there that Kris and her eight-year-old daughter will make a stand against grief. But a shadow has fallen over the quiet lake town of Pacington, Kansas. Beneath its surface, an evil has grown.
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3 out of 5 stars
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An 8 hour build up that fails to deliver
- By Will on 10-09-19
By: Scott Thomas
What listeners say about My Monticello
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Sarah C.
- 04-29-22
Speechless
This collection of stories by Johnson were incredible, bringing in different aspects of inter-sectionality and creating characters so vivid that readers are convinced they are real. The short stories were great and the novella was very interesting. I was not a big fan of the ending of the novella which is why I gave the story four stars instead of five. The ending left me wanting more and sad that the story was so quick to end. It’s a great piece of work that I think will be remembered for years to come. The oral performance was magnificent and the voice actor especially for My Monticello did incredibly well. I definitely recommend this for anyone even slightly interested in racial issues, speculative fiction, romance, and history. Great work!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 11-22-24
Beautiful, almost lyrical prose. A guide for our current times. Motivating and enlightening.
Loved the short stories and the novel. Each one tender and humanities. The work of a novelist, in my view.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Tess
- 12-03-21
Poignant
What happens if we let hate prevail. But against hope we hope that the good in mankind will prevail. Beautiful writing. Looking forward to the Netflix adaptation.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- MonPocFan
- 03-24-23
Dark and gloomy reading
Really enjoyed this, but it made my heart heavy as hell. The main story My Monticello is extraordinarily haunting and I enjoyed her breathy performance
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- mjk
- 07-16-23
Very impactful fiction or reality of different cultures
This work of fiction has made me consider the need for many of us to explore our beliefs and actions supporting them unless I am reading too much into this story.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- AmyHH
- 04-07-22
absolutely phenomenal
this is the most beautiful story by the author and the most incredible performance by Asian Naomi King. the only thing I would ask is that there would be a sequel ♥️🖤🤍🤎. PLEASE
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- hax0r_gurl
- 11-30-22
Loved it!
The story kept me interested and wanting more. So sad that it reflects our current struggles though. As a resident of Charlottesville I loved the accurate account of the area too. The narrator was fantastic!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- gail
- 03-07-23
Beyond stereotypes
The title novella is a taut, moving imaging of what our world might become — original, perceptive, and memorable.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ryan Sibley
- 07-09-23
Absolutely a work of art
This book is good on every level. It’s relevant and based upon real events in recent history. It’s also historical fiction in that the story relies on real events that took place ~200 years ago. The writing is superb. The plot is excellent and heartbreaking. The characters are perfect. Please read or listen (the reading is done beautifully). You’ll love it.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- anne prendergast
- 12-20-21
a beautiful new voice
Just a beautiful collection of stories. The quality of narration is perhaps the best selection I have listened to.
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