A Hudson Booksellers Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year, with foreword by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy High Fidelity meets Killing Yourself to Live when one man searches for his lost record collection. As he finds himself within spitting distance of middle-age, journalist Eric Spitznagel feels acutely the loss of… something. Freedom? Maybe. Coolness? Could be. The records he sold in a financial pinch? Definitely. To find out for sure, he sets out on a quest to find the original vinyl artifacts from his past. Not just copies. The exact same records: The Bon Jovi record with his first girlfriend's phone number scrawled on the front sleeve. The KISS Alive II he once shared with his little brother. The Replacements Let It Be he’s pretty sure, 20 years later, would still smell like weed. As he embarks on his hero's journey, he reminisces about the actual records, the music, and the people he listened to it with—old girlfriends, his high school pals, and, most poignantly, his father and his young son. He explores the magic of music and memory as he interweaves his adventures in record-culture with questions about our connection to our past, the possibility of ever recapturing it, and whether we would want to if we could. "Memories are far more indelible when married to the physical world, and Spitznagel proves the point in this vivid book. We love vinyl records because they combine the tactile, the visual, the seeable effects of age and care and carelessness. When he searches for the records he lost and sold, Spitznagel is trying to return to a tangible past, and he details that process with great sensitivity and impact."—Dave Eggers, New York Times bestselling author of The Circle

A thought-provoking book which questions the received wisdom and suggests radical new solutions to the very real issues records management faces.

Whether you're a casual collector or vinyl store junkie, this essential journal--with a high-quality cover that looks and feels like a record--includes: -Space for cataloguing details and "liner notes" or memories about your vinyl -Tips for cleaning discs and maintaining a serious collection -Information on evaluating vinyl for resale from Goldmine's vetted rating system -Perforated wish lists to tear out and take with you A catalog, journal, and guide all in one, A Record of My Vinyl is the ultimate autobiographical companion to your analog collection.

Egg-balancing, hotdog-eating, baton-twirling—these are a few of the records people try to break in order to find themselves included in the World Book of Records. For those who make into the book, Paul Baron, a judge at the publication, is a hero. For others, whose dreams he denies, he's a villain. After one man's plan to achieve renown is destroyed, Paul learns that the man may have lost everything else, but he hasn't lost hope—the hope of joining other record-breakers in the book. But the record the man hopes to break is terrible, and Paul unfortunately has a role in his project.

The inside story of New Zealand's iconic independent record label by the man who made it happen. I wanted to be more than just an observer. I wanted to be a part of what was going on. I had told someone and the word was out, and now I had to actually do this thing. Start a record label. I must have been drunk. Roger Shepherd was working in a Christchurch record shop when he realised the local bands he loved needed someone to make their records. Flying Nun was born. Those records and the bands that created them – The Chills, The Clean, Chris Knox and the Tall Dwarfs, The Verlaines, Sneaky Feelings, The Bats, Straitjacket Fits and many more – went on to define an era and create what became known as “the Dunedin Sound”. In truth it was less a unified sound than a spirit of adventure and independence that characterised the Flying Nun ethos. In this long-awaited memoir, label founder Roger Shepherd describes the idealism and passion that drove the project in the first place, the hard realities of the music industry, and the constant tension between art and commerce. Filled with revealing anecdote and insight, this is the definitive insider history of the one of the most innovative and original record labels of the modern era. "Surely the label with the highest quality output per capita in pop history." – Guardian UK. "Something inexplicably special happened in the Southern Hemisphere a quarter of a century or so ago, the ripples still rumbling, and without it, all the music you love today would sound ever so slightly, and indefinably, different.” - British comedian Stewart Lee.