Brett Milano's "Vinyl Junkies"

is an insider's look at "adventures in record collecting". Interviews with Peter Buck, Thurston Moore, Robert Crumb (only prewar shellac 78s for "Mr. Keep On Truckin'), "Monoman" (who prefers the mono versions of releases in his collection) and other collectors about their collections illuminate and analyze this (almost exclusively) male dominated hobby (obsession). The occasional almost normal woman collector appears but the chances of a daughter (Sean, I started reading "Vinyl Junkies" before your last post) covetting your record collection, is sadly, just about zero. A favorite quote from the book (paraphrased): "85% of collectors have O.C.D and the other 15% have serious problems."
Discussing the book with a friend at a party the other evening we laughed at the stories, the obsessions, the collections. The conversation turned inside out as Adam asked what was the most ridiculous thing I had ever purchased as a collector? He confessed that he once bought an unlistenable import album by Teenage Fanclub that consisted of several tracks of guitar noise and a cover of "Like A Virgn" and a solo album by Television's rhythm guitar player (what's so weird about that? Alchemy by Richard Lloyd-I got that disc). Me? A green vinyl version of a disc I already had two copies of (vinyl and cd) "Life in the Foodchain" by Tonio K.
I gave him a copy of "Little Johnny Jewel" (look it up if you really want to know) and he promised to hook me up with a 45 from the Replacements with a b-side cover of "Hey Good Looking". Record collectors. What a bunch of freaks!