Books on Vinyl

Now, this I like: short stories on vinyl.

It seems that a U.K. publisher has decided to "publish" short stories on 33 1/3 rpm vinyl discs under his new Underwood label (see the article to find out why he chose this name for his company - but I'm betting some of you already know the answer).

Nathan Dunne is either a very brave or a very stupid young man. At a time when a) the MP3 has supplanted the CD as the most popular format on which to listen to recorded sounds; b) literature as a physical artefact is coming under attack from the rise of iPads, Kindles and other digital reading devices; and c) the short story is as tricky to sell to publishing houses as it has ever been, Dunne has set up a new imprint called Underwood, whose remit is to produce 33rpm vinyl records featuring writers reading 20-minute short stories aloud. “Candidly, it’s an experiment,” he admits.

[...]

For Dunne, the current emphasis on the portability and ease of circulation of recorded sound rather than its sonic properties corrodes the intimacy of the listening experience.

“The MP3 has an alien digital gloss. It’s streamlined, corporate, like a mainline train station. Listening to a short story on vinyl is the purest antidote to that. It’s more immersive. It heightens engagement.”

This might just be crazy enough to work. I know I'm one of many thousands who still collect those old vinyl LPs that went out of style some time in the eighties. What better way for a vinyl collector to mix two hobby passions than "books on vinyl?"

For more information, please see the Telegraph article or go directly to the Underwood website.