A note of transparency first: this is a Groovilla Books title, and this page presents it rather than reviewing it. The book is forthcoming — what follows is what it contains, not a pitch for something you cannot buy yet.
The Grail Hunt: Europe is a travel guide for record collectors. Twenty European cities — London, Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham, Glasgow, Dublin, Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna, Prague, Rome, Milan, Bologna, Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon — one chapter each: where that city's sound came from, which shops matter now, and how to walk between them.
Every chapter ends with the part the title is named after: the grails, the treasure records that city produced and where you go to find them. Each one carries its story, the real market price, and — the part that earns its place when you are holding the sleeve — how to spot the original pressing: catalogue numbers, run-out matrices, the SIAE stamp or the Depósito Legal, the sleeve details that separate a first press from a reissue.
Those records live online too. The full cards, with the links to hunt them down, are in the The Grail Hunt section of this site — and that is where the QR codes printed in the book lead: scan the code next to a grail and you land on its card, with Discogs and the second-hand market one tap away.
Formats and channels. Ebook and print: the ebook direct from this site and on Payhip, plus Amazon Kindle (KDP, no Select exclusivity) and the Apple, Kobo and Nook stores through Draft2Digital; print on demand through IngramSpark, the channel that also makes it orderable in bookshops. Buy links appear here when the book ships.
Who it is for. For the traveller who already keeps a mental want list and would rather know, before leaving, which records are worth hunting in that city — and how to tell them from a reissue. Not a tourist guide with record shops in an appendix. The other way round.
