Vinyl: Owners’ Workshop Manual

Matt Anniss And Patrick Fuller

HAYNES PUBLISHING

Pretty but pointless book of tips for vinyl aficionados.

Famous for repair manuals for vintage motors, the boffins at Haynes have moved sideways in recent years, gleefully attaching their iconic brand to the latest fads in popular culture with abandon.

The latest guide to appear on the shelves is an Owners’ Workshop Guide for vinyl owners. Alongside useful information about setting up turntables and digitising record collections, you’ll find frankly ludicrous advice about recreating the Royal Albert Hall atmosphere at home (“Invite your richest friends to attend wearing full evening dress”) and the usual nonsense about the benefits of expensive speaker cables.

Too often the book resembles a series of clickbaity web articles cobbled together for print, but it hangs together nicely, and the pictures are decent. It’s probably destined to sit unread on the nation’s shelves, alongside records that are never played.

Fraser Lewry