Wood Books

As a long-time collector of woodcut novels, I am overjoyed to see the republishing of these gems. In this one very reasonably priced volume, you get a great introduction to this little known art form. If you have an interest in art history, early-to-mid 20th century political movements, art deco style, or if you simply enjoy good stories, you'll love this book. You really do not need an interest in modern-day graphic novels to appreciate these works (I don't). If you do have an interest in graphic novels, get this book, and learn some family history of the art.

Each of these books (four books for the price of one!) takes a slice of the artist's contemporary life and then explores the timeless conditions of humankind. Masereel was profounding affected by World War I and the European chaos between the wars, so his art addresses social conditions, including the urbanization of society, during those years. Ward and Patri were also affected by their times -- so the hardship and civil unrest brought on by the Great Depression and the trade union movement is the background for their stories here. Ward also presciently treats the rise of nazism in his other woodcut novels.

Patri's "White Collar" in particular is a real find, because this story is not readily available in any other form, as far as I know. Finally, Hyde's story was printed in 1951, and he addresses the first man-made weapon of mass destruction, the A-bomb, and its effect on the environment of the South Seas.

This book also gives a good sampling of the art of the woodcut novel, over time. The earliest is Masereel's work of 1918, and his figures have the least detail, and thus lack an ability to communicate nuance in the characters. Ward's work, is highly detailed, in a distinctive art deco style (akin to the work of Rockwell Kent) and I find more enjoyable.

To fully appreciate all these works, you need to spend some time with them on a second and third "read." It takes only a few minutes to go through each story, which is all it takes to get a general understanding of the story. However, upon rereading, and studying the figures, you will probably come to a different understanding of the story. Without words, there is a lack of precision, so your life experience and imagination will fill in the blanks.

Congratulations to the publisher (Firefly Books) for preserving this important art form, and making it accessible at a very reasonable price. Kudos!

These four graphic novels cover a range of relief printmaking techniques: woodcut, linocut, and wood engraving. They cover a range of styles, as well: Masereel's Expressionism, Ward's delicate linework on bold figures, Patri's crisp realism, Hyde's detailed primitivism. And, although they cover very different eras and stories, they all end in pessimism about people's treatement of people.

Masereel's story is the most ambiguous. His imagery has least in the way of explicit continuity and the most in dramatic contrasts. Masereel makes it clear, however, that the urban world has dozens of ways to chew people up and spit them out. Ward's "Wild Pilgrimage" tries to escape an urban hell, but finds rural America is no better. It includes a lynching early on, an ugly blot from the country's not-so-distant past. Patri's "White Collar" conveys the hopeless of The Depression, a world where no amount of hard work can be enough to make ends meet. Finally, Hyde's "Souther Cross" brings us up to the atomic age, examining one of the human costs of 50s-era nuclear testing in the Pacific.

Walker's collection reminds us that the graphic novel, as we know it today, drew from many sources. On one hand, comic strip culture evolved upwards through generations of comics towards today's graphic novels, and now presents very mature works by contemporary writers. In the other direction, fine art printing found itself too constrained by the single image. It needed plots, not just snapshots. As a result, it's easy for today's reader to appreciate these moving graphic series - and maybe easier, when that reader learns about the persecutions and McCarthy-eras black-balling of some of these artists and their works.

-- wiredweird

As a lover of carousels, history, and books, I was captivated by Tobin Fraley's presentation of American carousel art. This book is lovely to look at, richly illustrated with all kinds of carousel animal photographs as well as historical photos and memorabilia about carousels and carousel carvers. I liked how the book was divided, chronologically outlining carousel manufacturers and master carvers. Each carver had a different style ("the eyes of a Zalar horse always have a certain sadness to them" and"Charles Carmel captured a whimsical element that no other carver could match.") and this book does a great job of showing off these masters' beautiful work and individuality. If you're looking for a book that visually captures the fantasy and beauty of carousel animals while providing a highly interesting dose of American history, this book is for you.

This is an easy to buy, easy to read and easy to look at book on carousels. It is filled with wonderful full color pictures and a great written history of the carousel. If you enjoy looking at carousels, you will adore reading this book.

Reading this book I truly felt that I was walking with Peter O'Shea through the woods listening to his wonderful stories. This book is lovingly written and provides the reader with vivid, memorable descriptions of what I know to be a magnificent area of New York State. Well worth reading!

Peter O'Shea's "The Great South Woods" is a detailed and heartfelt account of the flora, fauna, geography and people of the Northwestern part of the Adirondack Park. All the native creatures of the area are described in detailed narratives similiar to one heard around a deep woods campfire. Golden eagles, racoons, bears, bobcat, snowshoe hare, beaver and white tailed deer are just a few of the animals reviewed in detail and passion. O'Shea easily describes the large variety of trees native to the area. Black cherry, white ash, tamarack, sugar maple, white birch and white pine read more like personalized characters rather than simple plant materials. The rivers and famous waterfalls of the region are also portrayed in delicate prose, prompting one to want to visit them over and over, if only in this book. Hiking along these ancient trails, O'Shea conveys a magical aura to everything he views, including the sweeping vistas from the many peaks and the experience of having a quiet hike interupted by a flight of a grouse or the discovery of a rare plant in a bog. Not content to stop with these topics, O'Shea delves further into the local lore and legend with well researched stories of the trappers, guides and sportsmen that first discovered and then protected this land. You'll find many favorite passages here and a wealth of information that will last lifetimes.

"Emily Hiestand, with her radical trust in description as a guide to the moral life--and her extraordinary trust in the processes of logic--works reason--kneads it, assaults it really--till it explodes once again into the magic and mystery it truly is. In Green the Witch-Hazel Wood, the breathtaking hesitancies and suddenly explosive new vantage points of the physics of our time are suddenly alive in the poetry. It crackles like some source of energy we had no idea we had lived without and now--of course--would not." --Jorie Graham

"Here is a poet with an exact and exacting intelligence which is not based on presumptions, but which arrives at its...conclusions with melodic intricacy." --Derek Walcott

"Green the Witch-Hazel Wood...is a dazzling, engaging book, wherein the chief pleasure is watching the play of Hiestand's imagination and curiosity. [This is] a bountiful group of superb poems." --Frances Mayes San Jose Mercury News, October 15, 1989

"This poet aspires to a Wallace Stevens-like palette.... The best poems experiment with scale, expanding and shrinking scenes until images achieve potency.... A sensuality, an unabashed play with language...renders her work distinctive." --Lee Upton, Belles Lettres, Spring 1990

"The remaking of nature poetry is always a challenge within a discourse. Emily Hiestand seems particularly fit for the challenge... Her poems are full of (the) correspondences and yearnings she observed in Bishop. Her line is swift, with a lovely, citric vernacular about it. I admire this in particular about her work...a powerful and gifted stylization within her wider themes; a sort of sibylline demotic. The pleasures of tone make the control in her nature poems a real mix of verve and intensity... These are wonderful gifts to find in poetry." --Eavan Boland Partisan Review, Summer 1993

"One of the most valuable things about Hiestand's poems is their vision of human life, and of its most characteristic featur! e, language, as continuous with the natural world. Here there is no romantic abyss, and no sentimentality...This first collection of poemsdeclares its attention to and affection for the natural world beginning with the title and the cover painting.... The opening epigraphs then define the tasks at hand: "If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred" (Chief Seattle) and "What we admire in the green world is a benign selfhood./ And in one another, the ability to speak of this. / Or better, to act it out." (William Meredith, Dalhousie Farm ). The poems themselves take up Meredith's challenge with wit, intelligence, curiosity and obvious pleasure in the task at hand. Their attention to detail is both lavish and precise." --Sharon Bryan The Boston Review, October 1989

"Emily Hiestand's Green the Witch-Hazel Wood is a foray into logical thought, beginning with the traditional logic of the mind where the world is questioned and observed. Much of...the book is an attempt to define, and broaden, that window of reason. To do so, Hiestand examines the world under a scientist's microscope, somewhat reminiscent of Dickenson, Moore, and Bishop before her. There is a parallel logic of the senses. the dominant sense here is sight (Hiestand is also a painter) where objects are lovingly made palpable. Nouns are clean and simple--eggs and sofas and linoleum and the smell of kerosene. The known world sparkles and comes alive under her observant eye: "here is an orange that fits in the palm of your hand / with segments like maps, and sweet, and hard." Hiestand's volume was selected by Jorie Graham for the National Poetry Series, and it shows some of the same proclivity for abstraction and philosophy as Graham's own work. This is an interesting turn of mind, and I find it refreshing." --Judith Kitchen The Georgia Review, Spring Summer 1990

These are poems that stop one's wandering mind and focus it onto an image, a detail (a rivet in a bridge, a passage from an archaic encyclopedia). And, remarkably, each detail contains an insight, a structural discovery about people, cultures, animals, or the hard material world. To be savored, and read out loud to good friends.

I won't repeat what John McCormick wrote, an exceptional review. As a lay person and someone who knows Alexandra personally I was thrilled to finally have this book in my hands. Like "Grave Undertakings", her first book, "Green-Wood Cemetery" is so filled with interesting facts and photos I could not put it down. Alexandra draws you in with her writing. I honestly felt like I was standing in Green-Wood with Alexandra as my guide. From my perspective I found it quite interesting to see some very simple grave markers for very famous people and how some every day Joes just had to have that million dollar marker.

I've always been fascinated by cemeteries and how the dead want to be remembered. Alexandra has given us the best tour I've ever had of a cemetery from my recliner at home.

Green-Wood Cemetery, a new pictorial history book written by eminent New York based funeral director and author Alexandra Kathryn Mosca, documents the fascinating history of one of Brooklyn's largest green spaces.
Mosca meticulously explains, in easy to read prose, why Green-Wood Cemetery remains a park and tourist attraction that draws more than 300,000 people annually. Part of Arcadia's Image of America series, Green-Wood Cemetery
offers readers a mesmerizing glimpse at the national historic landmark where citizens of great stature - such as Horace Greeley, Elmer Sperry, Leonard Bernstein, F.O.A. Schwarz, Charles L. Tiffany and DeWitt Clinton - among others have been buried.

Other highlights of Mosca's "can't put it down" book include a thorough and touching explanation of how Green-Wood Cemetery honored U.S. civil war veterans, Green-Wood's current connection to the NYC school system, and an apt tribute to the natural beauty of the land.

She also elucidates the history of the spectacular architecture of Green-Woods buildings, mausoleums, markers and statuary.
Mosca's distinctive experiences as a well seasoned funeral director, particular history researcher and skilled writer (American Funeral Director, American Cemetery, NY Newsday, Times Ledgers Newspapers and her book, Grave Undertakings ) help to draw the reader into this handsomely bound book, which is replete with superb graphics and well restored photographs.

Mosca has decidedly achieved her stated goal in writing the book: to reacquaint readers with one of the nation's leading cemeteries and its' famous and infamous "residents".
Green-Wood Cemetery actually makes learning about an important cemetery enjoyable and easy.

- Mac Mc Cormick
---------------------------------------------Mac Mc Cormick, a licensed funeral director and embalmer, has written for Kates-Boylston Publications (American Funeral Director, American Cemetery, Funerals of the Famous) since 1974. He retired from the USAF, after traveling the world for 23 years. Mac, who published Days of Death Nights of Service, a chronicle of personal experiences in funeral service, also wrote for The Associated Press and CBS World Radio News.

A master of his trade, Grinling Gibbons astounds you with his work. In this latest book on Grinling Gibbons, David Esterly adds something new to the usual discussion. He disects and explains the techniques that Gibbons used to create his work. If you have marveled at Gibbons' work, you won't want to miss this book to have the secrets revealed at last.

Esterly has created scholarly yet engaging study of the life and work of Gibbons, arguably the greatest and most well known master of the art. Esterly delves into the thought processes behind the work of carving and reveals his intimate knowledge of the subject honestly aquired by countless hours at the carver's bench. Historians, woodworkers and art enthusiasts will be find his account of Gibbon's life and work as complete a treatment of the subject as they could hope to find. While there is much carefully explained technical information concerning the mechanics of carving and creating Gibbon's monumental works it is presented with rare clarity and enthusiasm. Any serious carver should own and study this unparalled work.

This book is fantastic. It already saved me hundreds of dollars and much time. For example: The sideplate on my python came loose while shooting, the pawl got dislocated, and everything locked up. This was a sad day. Fortunately, this book had arrived in the afternoon. I was able to use it to completely strip all parts from the python, fix it, completely clean the action and reassemble, despite the common wisdom that the python's "swiss watch" action makes it impossible for mortals to touch and not destroy.

I've bought a lot of books I liked on amazon, this is the first that was so helpful I felt like I had to write a review.

There were a couple of things I'd like to see improved: (1) clearer pictures, (2) the book skipped one step that you had to interpolate by staring at pictures (in which details were hard to see), and (3) the author's bio is disconcertingly egomaniacal.


A more detailed, excellent book I'd also highly recommend: THE COLT DOUBLE ACTION REVOLVERS: A SHOP MANUAL, VOL. I.
by Kuhnhausen, Jerry.

this book supplyed us with all the information we needed. the works of the police positive colt pistol

Beautiful book. Tons of color pictures on every page! Not dissapointed at all, except for lack of serial number ident's.

This is a beautiful volume with complete and authentic research, covering nearly 2 centuries of Remington, America's oldest firearms manufacturer. The serious collector will appreciate the fine photography by Paul Goodwin showing minute details of all models of revolvers, rifles, and shotguns, including presentation pieces. Students of military history and western Americana will find this to be a priceless source book. Well done, having been co-sponsored by the Cody Firearms Museum and the Remington Society of America.

Halle Brothers was a Cleveland institution. It was, like many family-owned department stores, a vital player in the city's history. As the city grew, so did Halle Brothers. Author James Wood paints an interesting, vivid portrait of a store, the likes of which, are rarely seen in today's world of "cookie cutter" chains.

If you were a Clevelander in the 50's and 60's and wanted to shop in style, Halle's was your store. This book refreshes the memories of those who had the pleasure of shopping this retail institution while it told how a family of merchants experienced the successes and ultimate failure of a Cleveland retail icon.

If you are not a Clevelander, this book gives great detail of what "carriage trade" retail was and what happened to it.

Good reading, lots of memories, good fun.

You can get ready for World Cup 2010 in South Africa by reading this book, and if for some reason, it is played somewhere else, it is still worthwhile reading. It should be reprinted.

I saw a list on the 50 best books on soccer to read from the magazine Four Four Two; and this one certainly belongs on that list. It wasn't there, but it was better than some I read that were on the list and that list is subjective anyway; as you read on what interests you; if you are interested in Africa; you'll gobble this book right up!

Peter Auf Der Heyde, the author really loves his subject; grew up in South Africa; both with Apartheid and with out it. He played goalkeeper for black teams in South Africa and is a journalist with a unique perspective. I'd read about anything by him; he is an encyclopedia on African soccer (which by the way, he calls someone else that in the book).

We read about his journeys to World Cup and African Nations Cup qualifiers as well, as viewing games at the World Cup and at the Cup of African Nations. Besides that, we read his coverage of the South African bid to hold the World Cup in 2006; which obviously failed, so the next time, was there time.

He travels the continent to see these games and of course, in one chapter, he was off to France to see the World Cup.

We learn about Muti (seems to be what black magic would be in South Africa) and Voodoo being used in soccer games in Africa, the amiable and pleasant nature of the players from there, about problems that had happened in stadiums that caused disasters, even the common subject in soccer about corruption in it's adminstration and associations among many topics and many countries.

Early in the book, we find out about the Football (read Soccer) Associations in South Africa, Auf Der Heyde's homebase country and a bit of the way it was during Apartheid and afterwards. This goes into quite a bit of detail; but it doesn't last long and is important. After that, this is an exceptional book, to read at night about faraway places and exotic locales. If Auf Der Heyde ever rights a sequel; I think, the only thing, Auf Der Heyde did not cover is the question there is about some African's birthdates in soccer. I'm sure he could tell us a lot about this. He is so knowledgeable in this field; I think, I could chat with him on African football (soccer) for hours.

There are a number of pages of photos which are in color. Quite a few of the pictures are noteworthy, including one of the author with Nelson Mandela.

If one enjoys this book, the movie on South Africa; Catch a fire I would recommend as well.

A joy to read both for the African and the football observations. Totally off the beaten path, and better for it.