This collection of short pieces by fifty writers is about long players in more than one sense. Not only are they discussing LPs, but also albums that have been long played.

‘I became a student, then a PhD student, then a husband,’ writes Ian Rankin. ‘Kids arrived. I moved houses and countries. Each time, when we moved, the first record on the turntable was [John Martyn’s] Solid Air.’ And they stay fresh. For Lavinia Greenlaw, The Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat ‘sounds no less original every time I hear it’; for Marlon James, Björk’s Post ‘is so relentlessly present tense, that every time sounds like the first time you’re hearing it’.