Samantha Henig
The album covers in "And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl" are so perfectly dated—and hilariously kitschy—that it's impossible to look away. The product of two men's obsessive record collecting, the book examines 20th-century Jewish history through the prism of old LPs: holiday albums, comedy, Latin influence, even the sounds of war. For authors Roger Bennett, who also coauthored Camp Camp and "Bar Mitzvah Disco," and Josh Kun, a professor of communication and journalism at the University of Southern California, writing the book was a way to assuage their guilt over being so fuzzy on their own family histories: a money-making excuse to explore their Jewish roots. Here are some of our favorite fruits of their years of scouring eBay, picking through yard-sale offerings, and trekking to thrift stores in Boca Raton, Fla., where, Bennett says, "Jewish vinyl goes to die."
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