The Key of Life Garrett Hongo’s The Perfect Sound: A Memoir in Stereo is a symphony in words nearly impossible to encapsulate. [It] is not a single narrative but rather several narratives in one: a history of music and recording across time and genre; a son’s reminiscence of his father; a social history of California, Hawaii, and America

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A poet’s audio obsession, from his earliest vinyl to his quest for the ideal vacuum tubes, as he strives to make both sound and sense of his life. Buy it at Penguin Random House.

Some fifteen years ago, the CD changer in my stereo micro-system suddenly broke down, and I wrote a friend of mine, Peter Morrison, a former surfer turned English professor in Southern California whom I knew to be an audiophile, asking for advice about getting a new changer to replace it.  I’d just come back from Italy, where I heard