Memorials Books

The name Ellis Peters in the title of the book was clearly meant to lure readers. None of the writers are up to her standards. There is no shame in not being a master but it left me feeling a little cheated. There were a couple of stories that I kinda liked but the rest were forgettable except two were downright yucky. And the tributes to Ellis Peters written by each and every author were so uninteresting that I didn't bother to read any of them through.

The biggest sign of how unimpressed I am with this book -- I am going to give it away which I never ever do, but I feel kinda guilty that I am going to inflict this lame book on some poor soldier in Iraq. I shall have to include better reading material and some snack food in the box.

This information can be found online. This book only lists burials through the year 1977 and a lot of mistakes were made in recording the data. This book only contains names and date of birth, date of death and what cemetery they are located in. A small amount of history on the cemeteries in Crosby County.

To much free information on the internet to be paying for just a list of names.

I had high hopes after reading the Editorial Review and seeing the photo on the book cover. But I have to say this is the most disappointing book of photographs I've purchased in a long time. For me, the best photographs grab my attention with little or no explanation of what I'm looking at. That said, I do enjoy the reading the photographers' comments regarding location and why they took the photograph.

On European Ground is exactly that - the book focuses on the ground of old WWI battlefields, Nazi death camps and the Berlin Wall. Included are photos of steps, brick streets, railroad tracks, gravel, dirt and fields. This could have been interesting, but the photographer chose to zero in on his subjects so closely that we cannot tell where he is. In many of photos I found myself struggling to find something that would give the photo a sense of scale. Mr. Cohen seems to think that we will be moved by his photograph of a manhole cover once we are told that it is at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin. Or by his photo of sun-baked, cracked dirt as long as the words Buchenwald are below the photo. These photos do not tell a story.

This is the worst kind of elitist photography. I cannot stand the concept that I will appreciate a photo more once the photographer explains it to me. As far as I am concerned, a photograph has to stand on its own merits. If you have to explain it to me then you have lost me. The photo should grab me and draw me in. I should want to read about it. In the back of On European Ground the author provides notes on each set of photographs. So I spent two hours looking at a photo, then jumping to the back of the book to try to figure out why he thought this piece of ground required a photograph. Very frustrating. For photos this unremarkable, the author would have done us a favor by putting the notes next to the photo.

The book itself is nicely done, and the photographs are well-printed. I really wanted to like this book, but it was not to be.

If the concept interests you, I would suggest you buy Deathly Still: Pictures of Concentration Camps by Dirk Reinartz and Christian Graf von Krockow.

one word for this: BORING! what a snoozer! I could barely read this and hold up my head! why someone would get enjoyment out of this is beyond me! yawn-a-rific!