Vivian Maier: The Color Work by Colin Westerbeck and Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier: The Color Work is a coffee-table sized book of photographs (a "monograph" of Maier's color photography, according to the cover flap) that I wheedled my husband into buying me for Christmas and then wrapped, myself. I've wanted to own a book of her photography since I first read about her and saw examples of her work.

In the text to Vivian Maier: The Color Work, the author talks about what makes Maier's work, as a collection, significant in the photography world. Why are her photos special? He also mentions that her color photography is not as fine-tuned as her black-and-white work. If not for the text, in fact, you might think this is not such a hot collection. It's crucial to read the text because it makes sense of her work -- what she was trying to say through her photography, who her influences may have been, particular details that she clearly found fascinating. I got a lot out of that text.

Highly recommended - Both a wonderful collection and an informative read. Whatever you do, don't skip the text. It makes sense of the photos. One, for example, shows a white person in focus and two African Americans blurred at the edges. I would not have understood the deliberate choice Maier made by framing the photo exactly as she did, had I not read about it. Far better than any other book I read, Vivian Maier: The Color Work helped me to understand why a particular collection of photos has merit (specifically, her photos, but also generally). A pricey book but well worth the cost. I'm so glad I nudged the spouse into buying this for me.


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Abridged Classics by John Atkinson

Abridged Classics by John Atkinson is an extraordinarily silly but sometimes spot-on book of literary cartoons in which classic books are described in few words.

Some examples:

The Pearl by John Steinbeck: Owning stuff is problematic.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: Old-timey Gilligan's Island. 

Recommended - Some of the cartoons worked for me and some didn't. They're funniest when they hit the main plot points of a book accurately and I thought some missed the mark. In general, Abridged Classics is a fun book that I'd particularly recommend for people looking for a cute coffee table or waiting room book. If you read it from cover to cover, it'll take 5-10 minutes, depending upon whether or not you sit around trying to think up alternative abridged synopses (I did that -- I'm on the 10-minute end).

Note: While I gave this book an average rating at Goodreads, I liked it enough that I'm considering hanging onto it so that I can flip back and see what the author has to say about future classics after I've finished reading them (there is a handy, dandy index - yay). I don't, unfortunately, own a coffee table. I know, weird.

Addendum: In case you're unable to see the print on the cover, it says:

War and Peace: Everyone is sad. It snows. 

©2018 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, illustrated by Michael Sieben

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Illustrated by Michael Sieben
Harper Design edition published 2013 - Originally published 1900
Fiction - Fantasy/Children
222 pp.

Source:  HarperCollins

What's it about?

Dorothy and her dog Toto are carried to a foreign land known as Oz by a powerful tornado. In Oz, the house lands on the Wicked Witch of the East and Dorothy acquires the witch's charmed silver shoes but she doesn't know how how to use them or whether she will ever manage to return to Kansas.  She's told to follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City to ask The Great and Terrible Wizard of Oz to help her return.  Along the way, she makes new friends, meets some very interesting people and faces many challenges.  Oz insists that he will only help Dorothy and her friends with their needs if they kill the Wicked Witch of the West. When she finds out the wizard is nothing but a "humbug", will Dorothy be stuck in Oz, forever?

Why I read it:

I read a condensed version of The Wizard of Oz [sic] in 2009 and thought it a delightful story.  Since then, I've wanted to read the original in its full glory, but I obviously didn't rush out to find a copy.  When I was contacted about reviewing a new edition, I jumped at the opportunity.  I don't participate in reading challenges (although I occasionally will follow along in spirit by reading a book or two fitting the theme) but I had the Once Upon a Time Challenge in my head.  Spring feels destined for fantasies and fables, thanks to the annual challenge.

What I liked about The Wonderful Wizard of Oz:

There is much to love about L. Frank Baum's response to the older and very dark fairy tales by Grimm and Anderson. Baum thought they were too horrifying; and, it was time for a new kind of "wonder" story.  Because he deliberately set out to avoid the gore and horror of older stories, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is surprisingly innocuous, which pleased me because I'm none too fond of the scary bits in the old movie.  Bad things happen, but they're invariably followed by good.  Even the notorious flying monkeys are not all that evil.  They've been enslaved for being naughty and have to do what they're told, but they're not malicious.

Typically, for a story that has been altered when made into a movie (quite a few times, although I admit to ignoring all but the Judy Garland version made in the 30s) there is a great deal more to the book than the trimmed-down movie version. Munchkins are only one of the different peoples Dorothy meets.  I was particularly surprised by the village made entirely of china and the Winkies, who were held captive by the Wicked Witch of the West.

What is special about this particular edition?

The Harper Design edition has nice, large print (but not huge) and it's very high quality -- the kind of book with an upscale scent that makes you want to stick your nose between the pages and inhale deeply.  The edges of the pages are colored so that, when closed, there is a rainbow of colored strips.

And, the illustrations are unique to the edition, of course.  Beneath the jacket (shown open at the top of this page), the cover is orange cloth with a small black line illustration of two jars, one that says "brains" and the other "courage", along with a heart.

What I disliked about The Wonderful Wizard of Oz:

I confess that I don't love the illustrations.  Some of them are cute (like the mouse queen, below), but for the most part they're not to my taste.

Toto doesn't even look like a dog, to me.  He looks like a stuffed bear with an awkward tail.  But, I was all about the story, in this case, and I know of at least two people who will probably love the illustrations.  I do like some.  I love the slipcover illustration and the illustration beneath.  The illustrations have what I think of as the "new graphic look" (my wording) - simple but just a little on the weird side.  I love the fact that the book is packed with illustrations, including a lot of two-page spreads.  And, I'm stupidly fond of the chapter headings.

I still don't love the flying monkeys, innocuous though they may be.

The bottom line:

Recommended - A fun, escapist read that is nowhere near as sinister as the movie.  I absolutely loved the unabridged storyline in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, especially the part where the wizard confesses that he's not at all "great and terrible"; he's just a "humbug" (a fraud).  Whether or not you're interested in this particular edition probably will have to do with the illustrations and quality, more than anything.  I'm impressed with the quality but am not a big fan of the illustrations, although I had my favorites.

It's always tremendous fun reading the original classic and finding out what was cut from the book or changed when the book was made into a movie.  Silver slippers rather than ruby red!  Winkies trapped in slavery!  Likable flying monkeys! Very cool.

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

A few minis - Jamie Durie's Outdoor Room, Fairy Godsister, Flight to Heaven, Housekeeper & Professor

Some of these books have been sitting in my sidebar for so long that I feel like I ought to go to confession to ask forgiveness. Except, I'm not Catholic . . . but you know what I mean. The guilt is there, although only one is a review book.

Jamie Durie's The Outdoor Room is one that I didn't actually finish 100%. I loved what I read, but the farther I got into The Outdoor Room, the more I realized I will never have an outdoor room in Mississippi. We have enough trouble with maintenance in the backyard. I can't even begin to imagine fighting poison ivy growing over the walls of a corner set aside for enjoying the outdoors. I would need a lot of help creating that kind of space and making it easy to maintain.

However, I read most of it and I like Durie's ideas for design. They can be carried into your house, as well. The starting point to creating a relaxing space, as described in The Outdoor Room, involves examining your own taste by collecting pictures from magazines, taking photos, etc. of textures, designs and colors that you like and then using the things you love to create the perfect space. I've done similar (collected photos and put them on a bulletin board) but hadn't thought to take pictures of things like, say, ocean or grass or rocks if those are things that appeal to you visually and then trying to figure out how to work the colors and textures you like into a room with other design features.

Durie also talks about things like light (because work spaces tend to be dark, making your outdoor space offset your long, dark days), different types of design, shapes, plants to use in your outdoor room, specific projects he's worked on and their inspiration, where certain designs work. There's a lot of text in this book and it's all worth reading. I need to go back and reread the entire book, now that I'm done having a private temper tantrum about how awful the outdoors is in Mississippi.

I highly recommend Jamie Durie's The Outdoor Room to those who want new ideas for decorating, whether or not you plan to build an outdoor room, because I think it's great for inspiration inside and out, although it definitely fulfills its purpose in helping the reader to visualize his or her own outdoor room. One of my favorites is the exotic oasis in Seattle, which was inspired by Egyptian spaces but which looks very zen to me. Since we returned from Japan, my husband and I have been mulling ways to make our home reflect that sense of calm we got from the zen gardens and I think this book can help. Many thanks to Harper Design for the review copy of The Outdoor Room.

Philippa Fisher's Fairy Godmother by Liz Kessler is an e-book I got as a freebie. I read it when I couldn't get myself to focus on anything else and it did help pull me out of my slump, but I found it disappointing. Philippa has always believed in fairies. When her best friend moves away, she's heartbroken and cries on a flower. The flower responds and Philippa is convinced it's a fairy disguised as a flower. She plucks it, carries it to her treehouse and plans to return at midnight to see the fairy transform. But, then she changes her mind and disposes of the flower.

The next day, a sullen new girl shows up at school and Philippa tries to befriend her. After a rocky beginning, they eventually become fast friends and the new girl reveals that she's Philippa's fairy godmother (but that sounds strange, so they decide to call her a fairy godsister). I don't actually remember much beyond that. I just recall feeling disappointed. It's a cute book and it gets high ratings from its youthful intended audience -- middle readers, I think -- and their mothers. I recommend Philippa Fisher's Fairy Godsister to youngsters, in particular (Moms - it's a nice, clean read) and was happy that it broke my reading block temporarily, but it just didn't do much for me. Might have been the timing.

Flight to Heaven: A Plane Crash, A Lone Survivor, A Journey to Heaven and Back (that's not really the subtitle, but it's hard to read the tiny print in that image and gives you the gist of the book) by Capt. Dale Black is the story of a man who was the only survivor of a plane crash in 1969, at the age of 19. It tells of his determination to recover and fly again, how he slowly regained his memory and went on to become a pilot for a major airline, and a heart-pounding edge-of-your-seat story about a second close call when he flew to Africa on a mission trip.

I absolutely could not put Flight to Heaven down, once I began to read it. Dale Black's story is stunning and he does a great job of making you feel like you were there. Although he does talk about eventually remembering that he'd gone to heaven, his description of heaven is a minor portion of the book (in fact, that was the part I enjoyed least and found myself skimming). Flight to Heaven focuses on his experiences, the emotions he felt and his determination to recover, as well as how he slowly regained missing memories. When you read about his injuries and how, after the plane crashed into a solid monument he fell 70 feet, you can't help but realize that it really is quite astounding that he survived at all.

The crash changed the author's life and made him determined to share his beliefs, so there's plenty about Christianity but he comes off as humble and a man of strong character rather than preachy. He admits to times he was too pushy about his beliefs and talks about how he learned from his mistakes. I'd recommend Flight to Heaven to anyone and everyone, if only because it's an excellent lesson in what positive thinking can do for an individual. Flight to Heaven was another e-book freebie. I didn't actually mean to read it but I hit the wrong image, read a sentence or two and couldn't stop, by the time I realized I was reading the wrong book. Highly recommended.

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa is about the relationship between a single mother, the professor she cares for and her son. The professor is a brilliant mathematician who suffered a head injury 30 years before she met him. His memory only lasts for 8 hours, so he wears a suit covered in notes to remind him of important things.

During the time that the housekeeper works for the professor, she and her son get to know him and he teaches them some math principles, a good portion of which I didn't follow. Some of the math was fascinating, but I mostly liked the rest of the story -- the building of the relationship between the odd trio of unnamed people and the denouement, which is not entirely unexpected but is still satisfying. I might have used a tissue or two while reading this book. While I found the math portions of The Housekeeper and the Professor down were a little dull, I think the story is a good one and I recommend it. I got my copy of The Housekeeper and the Professor from Paperback Swap.

©2011 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Agonizing Love by Michael Barson

Agonizing Love: The Golden Era of Romance Comics

By Michael Barson

Copyright 2011

Harper Design - Comics/Design/History

208 pages, incl. Bibliography

During the late 40s to mid-50s, comic books took a decidedly adult turn with the release of romance comics. In Agonizing Love, author Michael Barson pays tribute to these laughably dramatic comics of the past with a brief history and a nice sampling of actual comics in a size large enough to make great coffee-table fodder.

The text in Agonizing Love is lighthearted and a little tongue-in-cheek, occasionally to the point that I'd have been tempted to give the author a gentle kick if he happened to be in the room with me. But, in general, I liked it because I learned about something new. Michael Barson collects romance comics, so those that are shown in the book are, to my understanding, from his personal collection. He talks about the origin of romance comics and how the originals sold so well that there was a tremendous surge of production by numerous comic book companies -- rather like what's happened with the sudden rise of paranormal young adult novels, I suppose. Romance comics were short-lived, disappearing in less than a decade, although they spawned a few comics like the Archie & Veronica series, which can still be found at some bookstores.

The text in Agonizing Love is minimal. Most of the book is dedicated to a look inside the comics. And, fortunately, you get to read an entire story each time you peek into a different comic book. The author doesn't tempt you and then yank the cookie out from under your nose by showing mere pieces of romance-comic stories.

I had an interesting love/hate relationship with Agonizing Love. The author seemed a little perplexed as to why the comics didn't last, although he did say they were often laughably dramatic. Perhaps he doesn't understand because he's male? Drama is one thing, but drama in which the female is frequently a simpering archetype whose only goal is to marry so she can cook, clean and sew is . . . well, kind of upsetting. It's awful to sit back and imagine your mother and grandmother having to live through that crap. Fortunately, I know at least my grandmother didn't succumb to societal norms. She was a well-educated, talented working woman and fiercely creative. So, that helped assuage my mind a bit.

The bottom line:

A fascinating peek into a unique phase in comic-book history, definitely recommended and especially fitting as a conversation starter. Be forewarned: If you're a feminist, Agonizing Love might make you angry for the sake of your mother or grandmother. But, it's a fun book and I really enjoyed reading the comics and text, learning about the strange, short-lived phase in which romance comics sold like hotcakes. I had to remind myself to just enjoy the drama a little, I confess, but if I ever get a coffee table I'll set this one out for guests to peruse. I think it would be loads of fun to watch someone flip through Agonizing Love and see what they have to say. One thing I really loved about the book was the innocence of the romance in those old comics. No nudity, no sex, sometimes even a bit of nervousness about kissing. Well, that's definitely something you don't see, anymore!

In other news:

Gosh, I sure am a busy girl. How are you? I've gotten a few books in the mail but I've been a little disorganized and will have to gather them to snap a photograph. Don't hold your breath. I am truly overwhelmed, now that I'm back to traveling to physical therapy and continuing to take my killer exercise class. But, I'll work on gathering the books together because I know those of you who drop by regularly adore photos of books as much as I do.

Reading-wise:

I am tremendously slumpy. Although I'm enjoying re-reading Simon's novel, Everything Beautiful Began After, I think fatigue is playing a role in my inability to keep eyes on a page. I'm also reading a pink book . . . um, I'll have to look up the title and put it in my sidebar -- kind of a Jill-Mansellish type of romantic British romp. Those poor bees are never going to finish with me, at the rate I'm going. So, I may drop The Beekeeper's Lament and start a different nonfiction read or just insert something very, very brain light like a children's book to try to jump-start my reading.

And, how about those cats?

Well, this one fell off the IKEAs, today:

Poor Isabel. I think she must have rolled over in her sleep. Fortunately, there was a laundry basket full of clothing to break her fall, but it was still about a 7-foot fall and a very hard landing. She did not land on her feet. She hit about halfway off the basket, fell onto some Stuff on the floor and then bounced one more time before ending up sprawled by the bed. I just happened to be sitting on the bed and poor Izzy was shaken and humiliated. She seems okay, but I don't think she'll be sleeping up near the ceiling for a while!

While Isabel was recovering (with a continuation of her interrupted nap, naturally), I introduced Fiona to a game for cats on my iPad, which I found thanks to one of my son's ex-girlfriends, whom I'm friends with on Facebook. Gamesforcats.com is a site with free games hosted by Friskies cat food. Both of my girls think fishing is loads of fun and they very politely took turns, after Isabel woke up.

Posting will continue to be sporadic for the entire month of August, but September might be halfway normal. As my husband says, "We'll burn that bridge when we get to it."

©2011 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.