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kfrench1008's review
5.0
I really enjoyed this book. She writes about collecting, but from the perspective of someone who totally loves music and what it can do to you and for you. Her reactions to certain songs is similar to the way I react to the music that moves me.
mikeerrico's review
5.0
A cockeyed look at the world of rare 78s, the people who collect them, and the human impulse to collect. Features the least transcendent, but funniest scuba diving scene I've read in...ever?
jerkstorecalling's review against another edition
4.0
I couldn't put it down; it's by no means a long or challenging read, but I had it finished in 24 hours. I learned more about 78s than I could ever want to know, and I was blown away by the tiny community of record collectors. It's engaging, funny, and flows beautifully. The only smudge on its record in my opinion is Amanda's four or five pages discussing a possible link between collecting (primarily of 78s) and Autism, Asperger's, and addiction. Up until the very end, it's never alluded to, and then she speaks about it in a vague "maybe it's true maybe it isn't" way that, for me, would have been better left out of the book entirely. Aside from that, I very much enjoyed it.
deborahrosegreen's review
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
3.0
I'm not the target audience for this book and about 60% probably went over my head. However, I learned something about records and enjoyed the scuba diving scene.
firolimn's review
adventurous
informative
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
I was drawn in by the particularly vivid portrait of collecting that Petrusich penned down, the clear picture of giddiness familiar to anyone with a penchant for collecting (be it finding a yet-unowned book by your favorite author at a thrift store, pulling a treasured Magic the Gathering card from a booster, or discovering some arcane lusted-after item for near-nothing on eBay).
I stayed for the lucid mediations: Petrusich dissects what it means to be a collector, what inspires that consumptive obsession, and scrutinizes the wide-reaching influence of the most devoted curators. Both positives and negatives, the careful preservation of records which might otherwise have languished and been dumped (but through the diligence of enthusiasts now live on digitally for many to enjoy) and the dangers of allowing an impassioned minority to redefine the character of a movement, the primary case study here being early 20th century blues, obsessed over by neurotic white ascetics.
Overall, delightful and intriguing creative nonfiction
samreadsbooks2's review
3.0
A look inside the minds of collectors of all types, but specifically those who collect 78rpm records. The records themselves are incredibly rare, a piece of history that should belong in a museum but not enough people seem to care about them to have a museum built. The really old ones, from the 1920s, are sometimes the only record of the songs that are left in the world.
This book was ok. The writing style flowed well and Amanda Petrusich has a good narrative voice. I enjoyed reading a female music critic's perspective, for once. Overall it was a bit boring. If you're very interested in 78s or rare music recordings, this is a good book for you.
This book was ok. The writing style flowed well and Amanda Petrusich has a good narrative voice. I enjoyed reading a female music critic's perspective, for once. Overall it was a bit boring. If you're very interested in 78s or rare music recordings, this is a good book for you.
bent's review
3.0
A bit of a scattershot approach to the subject of collecting 78 rpm records. Petrusich does a good job of detailing the urge of the collectors, the history of collecting 78s, the market and some key collectors, but she also spends a lot of time on sidebar issues.
She details her attempts to go diving for records near an location of a former record factory, detailing the steps that she and her husband take to get certified as scuba divers, the booking of a boat to take the, etc all for one day of diving that didn't turn up anything. She goes into great detail about one particular collector who dies and someone rescued several boxes of records from the dumpster outside his home. Petrusich quotes from letters at great length written to the collector, describes the state of his house when he died (he seems to have been a bit of a hoarder as well as a record collector). At some point when she was detailing his correspondence, I wondered why we needed to hear about his rather lonely life. None of his surviving family could be bothered to come and look at his stuff nor would they participate in Petrusich's attempts to talk to them about the deceased. Both anecdotes feel a lot like filler.
And of course, there's the music itself. I knew going in that I probably wouldn't care for much of the music. I don't really like the blues. I had a period when I lost my way and strayed from hard rock and heavy metal where I gave the blues a chance, but I didn't like it. Too slow, too acoustic, not hard enough. So even when she talks about how emotional she finds some of these long lost songs, I knew that they wouldn't have the same impact on me. I did go look them up on-line, and I was right.
There is a tendency to fetishize old technology. I grew up in the era of Walmans. My mother hated my music, as did most of my friends, so my music was kind of a private thing. So I never had to connection to vinyl that some people had. I never was bothered by the hiss of the cassette nor blown away by the sound of CDs. And the compression that MP3s have is not something that I've ever noticed. So I don't buy the notion that listening to the actual 78s is some kind of life-altering experience. It reeks of elitism and pretension.
I appreciate that she included the naysayers in her book - those who balk at the lionization of the obscure over the popular, against those who treat rarity as proof of merit. Chapter twelve gives voice to several of those who would rail against this view of that music. It also touches on the fact that most of those who are trying to bring this music to light and are conducting scholarship into the music and the artists are white, while most of the performers are black. It's an interesting point, one that I had just started wondering about when Petrusich addressed it.
Overall, I enjoyed the book. It could have been either shorter, or more focused. There are a lot of interesting issues that the book touches on but doesn't fully explore, and it feels like a big part of that is because Petrusich becomes a convert very quickly. Not as good as it felt like it could be, but an interesting read nonetheless.
She details her attempts to go diving for records near an location of a former record factory, detailing the steps that she and her husband take to get certified as scuba divers, the booking of a boat to take the, etc all for one day of diving that didn't turn up anything. She goes into great detail about one particular collector who dies and someone rescued several boxes of records from the dumpster outside his home. Petrusich quotes from letters at great length written to the collector, describes the state of his house when he died (he seems to have been a bit of a hoarder as well as a record collector). At some point when she was detailing his correspondence, I wondered why we needed to hear about his rather lonely life. None of his surviving family could be bothered to come and look at his stuff nor would they participate in Petrusich's attempts to talk to them about the deceased. Both anecdotes feel a lot like filler.
And of course, there's the music itself. I knew going in that I probably wouldn't care for much of the music. I don't really like the blues. I had a period when I lost my way and strayed from hard rock and heavy metal where I gave the blues a chance, but I didn't like it. Too slow, too acoustic, not hard enough. So even when she talks about how emotional she finds some of these long lost songs, I knew that they wouldn't have the same impact on me. I did go look them up on-line, and I was right.
There is a tendency to fetishize old technology. I grew up in the era of Walmans. My mother hated my music, as did most of my friends, so my music was kind of a private thing. So I never had to connection to vinyl that some people had. I never was bothered by the hiss of the cassette nor blown away by the sound of CDs. And the compression that MP3s have is not something that I've ever noticed. So I don't buy the notion that listening to the actual 78s is some kind of life-altering experience. It reeks of elitism and pretension.
I appreciate that she included the naysayers in her book - those who balk at the lionization of the obscure over the popular, against those who treat rarity as proof of merit. Chapter twelve gives voice to several of those who would rail against this view of that music. It also touches on the fact that most of those who are trying to bring this music to light and are conducting scholarship into the music and the artists are white, while most of the performers are black. It's an interesting point, one that I had just started wondering about when Petrusich addressed it.
Overall, I enjoyed the book. It could have been either shorter, or more focused. There are a lot of interesting issues that the book touches on but doesn't fully explore, and it feels like a big part of that is because Petrusich becomes a convert very quickly. Not as good as it felt like it could be, but an interesting read nonetheless.
jessferg's review
3.0
This is one of those books targeted to a very specific market. So specific, you're not sure if you're in it or not. Part of the time I felt like I was reading a textbook while at other times it was like a historic recitation of dates, places, names, and titles. Occasionally it was a psychological profile of a "type," or the memoir of an obsession.
I think the truth is that I didn't enjoy this book. It's well written, if a little stiff, and it certainly contains a lot of information. I feel like I was at a disadvantage by not going into the book with a history of the blues instead of coming away feeling like I've gained some knowledge of the subject. I wasn't able to identify with most of the songs discussed. A companion website with links to audio and/or video of the songs and folks would have been immensely helpful, but does not appear to exist. Youtube (and other) searches are helpful but time consuming and not always accurate.
That's from a non-collector's point of view. Although it's hard to think collectors would enjoy it any more. They know all this stuff and I am sure there is minutiae they'd take issue with. They'd find it tiresome.
There's an element of trying to hard, which Petrusich even hints at herself, and on the other hand there's an overarching desire to pretend she is on your side. A "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" thing that just ends up feeling patronizing.
In the end, I won't be recommending it to any of my music-loving friends, which is a shame because they (and I) should have really loved this topic.
I think the truth is that I didn't enjoy this book. It's well written, if a little stiff, and it certainly contains a lot of information. I feel like I was at a disadvantage by not going into the book with a history of the blues instead of coming away feeling like I've gained some knowledge of the subject. I wasn't able to identify with most of the songs discussed. A companion website with links to audio and/or video of the songs and folks would have been immensely helpful, but does not appear to exist. Youtube (and other) searches are helpful but time consuming and not always accurate.
That's from a non-collector's point of view. Although it's hard to think collectors would enjoy it any more. They know all this stuff and I am sure there is minutiae they'd take issue with. They'd find it tiresome.
There's an element of trying to hard, which Petrusich even hints at herself, and on the other hand there's an overarching desire to pretend she is on your side. A "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" thing that just ends up feeling patronizing.
In the end, I won't be recommending it to any of my music-loving friends, which is a shame because they (and I) should have really loved this topic.
abookishtype's review
4.0
Last spring, I read John Jeremiah Sullivan’s long article for The New York Times Magazine, “The Ballad of Geeshie and Elvie.” The article, which recounts the sparse knowledge we have about two of the most sought-after recording artists of 1920s country blues, was my first introduction to the world of 78 collectors. 78 records were the second generation of recorded music; the heavy shellac records were more durable than their wax cylinder predecessors but not as user-friendly as the 45 and 33 1/3 LPs that would follow. Not many survive these days. Competition for them is fierce. The collectors Amanda Petrusich meets in Do Not Sell at Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World’s Rarest 78rpm Records have many reasons for spending years of their lives and thousands of their dollars tracking down them down. For myself, I’m glad these people are around. Without them, we would have lost amazing, powerful, honest music. We might never have heard Geeshie Wiley and Elvie Thomas’s “Last Kind Words Blues” or Robert Johnson’s “Hell Hound on My Trail.”
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.
radballen's review
5.0
Really, really liked this book. It's a fun look at the eccentric folk that collect and curate obscure 78's in the United States. It is also a nice contemplation about the state of music in the deluge of internet music streaming. I came away reinvigorated about getting back to deeper listening. I also want to get my old 78's out again for another spin!