Original in Style, important in subject
931110
The easiest thing to do to give life to my experience with this novel is to compare it to analogous experiences.  The book weaves a number of stories together that often end badly and sooner than expected.  In that way, there are moments of unexpected raw WTF emotion that I can best compare to McCarthy's Blood Meridian.  I felt like I was discovering a history, brutal and unsettling, that I should have already encountered.  Stylistically,  his sentences remind me of Garcia Marquez, long and full and original in  their specificity.  This is a novel well worth reading.
2594833
Three comments about this work, which I like. First, it is a cleanly written testament to the ability of ample resources (time, focus, commitment, money) to make significant contributions to the physical and social fabric of the cultural continuum. Second, it is just as much a romance as anything a Broadway composer ever saluted, save that the romance is not between boy and girl but between a high-energy American couple very much of our times (Sally and Carl Gable of Atlanta, Georgia) and a Palladian villa whose needs make it vulnerable and whose historic beauty makes it irresistible (Villa Cornaro in Piombino Dese, the Veneto). Third, the "voice" of the book does not succumb to the usual traps of attempting to be either too academic for the purpose or too sentimental for the intellectual comfort of the uninvolved.

Rather, this is a straightforward, clear-eyed account of the relationship between the Gables and the villa and what each has brought to the other in the almost two decades since Sally first read the fateful ad in the New York Times. One of the most appealing aspects of the book is the way in which it presents the citizenry of Piombino Dese, not as eccentrics with lovable or irritating idiosyncrasies (as is so often the approach in such works), but as real people attempting to retain connections and customs that matter to them even as they inevitably bridge old socioeconomic patterns and new.

This is, in short, not a book for those looking for a cozy account of "ooh, sweet couple buy really nifty house and live happily ever after (although they appear to have done so)." Nor will it appeal to those seeking a professionally comprehensive history of Palladio, Palladian houses, the Veneto, and modern-day Italian politics. For those, however, who see important architecture as the embodiment in concrete form of the spirit of civilization past and its preservation and adaptive use as a test of civilization present, this book is a fascinating read, as much for what it leaves between the lines as for what went upon the printed page.

I enjoyed the book. I think anyone who's really into Italy or architecture will find it worthwhile.
136332
The photographs of Alfred Stieglitz still look modern and talented today, but it's nearly impossible to imagine how they would have looked to viewers in the 1890s, when they were taken.  They were revolutionary, amazing, radically avant-garde.  In a similar vein, the first novel about an American industrialist---a novel first printed in 1885---cannot seem so new, so fresh to our 21st century eyes.  This theme startles nobody anymore.  But in tracing the ups and downs of Silas Lapham, late of a Vermont village, a Civil War veteran, and founder of a fortune in 1870s Boston, Howells produced a highly original novel for his day.  Lapham, his plain-spoken wife Persis, and two daughters live in luxury, thanks to the successful paint manufacturing business whose ubiquitous ads disfigured large portions of the New England countryside.  Puffed up with success and not averse to considerable bragging, Lapham decides to build a sumptuous mansion on the water side of Beacon Street in the then-new district of Back Bay.  At the same time, the Laphams come into contact with a family from the old Boston Brahmin elite, a family whose son falls in love with a Lapham daughter.  The reaction of both families to this potential liaison, the love affair itself, and the fate of the Lapham fortune form the subject of this solid novel.
William Dean Howells was and is known as one of the early American "realists", as opposed to the more romantic style that dominated most of 19th century English language literature.  Not being a person well-versed in the "accepted wisdom" of literary criticism and history, I can only say that compared to later writers, for example, Crane, Norris, Dreiser, and Sinclair, to be followed later by Anderson and Lewis, I find that Howells' work still retains plenty of the more romantic elements even while he does portray the life and business of a paint tycoon with considerable accuracy and empathy.  No snobbish repudiator of nouveaux riches gaucheries, Howells.  This book is not a sarcastic look at the "ridiculous efforts of a bourgeois to climb above his station".  Lapham may have his faults, but he is essentially a good, likeable man.  If you have an interest in Boston history or in knowing what Boston life was like in the 1870s, I believe you will certainly enjoy reading THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM.  The story is a little artificial, the language a bit outdated, I felt, though in comparison to the horrors and perversities that throng some modern works, the novel might fill a few winter afternoons with a quiet pleasure.  Certain stylistic oddities surprised me, such as the sudden appearance of a narrative "I" after over 200 pages !  Howells has been quite neglected in recent times: for sure, he may not be a Dostoevsky, Balzac, or Faulkner, but don't brush him off.
3633376
After the Napoleonic Wars, people in Western Europe were tired of ostentation (and they frankly lacked the resources to indulge in it, even if they had the spirit). Biedermeier, then, was a reaction to ornate and overwrought design and interior decoration. It presented modest earth tones that emphasized home and hearth, and was one of the first times (maybe the first) that cultural cues were set by the middle-class, instead of the upper-classes. In America now we suffer a bit of what Paul Fussell called "Prole Drift" wherein style flows up from the bottom of the society to the top, but that's another (and frankly depressing) topic for another day.

Despite its modesty and understatement, Biedermeier design was sometimes very creative and aesthetically pleasing, and the guided tour that Angus Wilkie gives in this book will give everyone from the layman to the antiquarian a new appreciation for this short but fertile cultural efflorescence that may affect how we view the home and its furnishings today. Indeed, Wilkie argues (mostly successfully) that Biedermeier was not only an art style, but a way of life that perhaps marked the birth of interior design and decoration as a past time and a hobby, rather than just a collection of things accumulated throughout one's life. It's important to remember that Germany, along with France, had a sophisticated and rigorous system by which even window dressers in department stores learned their trade. To put it bluntly, making rooms look good (public or private) is and was serious business on the continent.

The focus in this book is on applied arts, chairs with scalloped backs and various chests of drawers veneered in cherry or birch, but occasional grace notes from previous stylistic wheelhouses like rococo and Empire show up here and there, especially in some of the beautiful clocks and smaller timepieces. Some of the glass pieces are more beautiful than hard stone jewelry from other collections. Indeed, sometimes the line between competent craftsmanship and truly inspired art can get pretty murky.

There is a short section on Biedermeier fine art, which consists of mostly naturalistic, faithfully-rendered pastoral or interior scenes so detailed that they first strike the eye like a photograph.

Biedermeier's importance and lasting influence may be a source of some debate among art scholars, but regardless of whether or not it continues to exert its hold on the aesthetic imagination (and I think it does), Herr Wilkie does the curious reader and art lover a service with his book. Recommended.
3060672
A rare history, written by an artist whose artful touch is felt throughout.
3196546
In the second half of the nineteenth century, Europeans and Americans discovered the world of Japanese woodblock prints and thus began an enduring love affair.  One result has been the publication over the last century of literally hundreds of books and thousands of articles about the prints known as "ukiyoe,"  with a particular emphasis on such giants of the genre as Hokusai and Hiroshige.  How then, in this crowded field, does one manage to create a must-have publication for readers who may already have well-stocked libraries on Japanese art?
One answer is to be found in "Hokusai and Hiroshige: Great Japanese Prints from the James A. Michener Collection, Honolulu Academy of Arts."  Issued by the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco in conjunction with an exhibition, "Hokusai and Hiroshige" is typical of a new wave of "ukiyoe" books that combine excellent design (of layout and typography) with clear and interesting text.  Every page displaying a print has a near equal amount of space devoted to text, and the book benefits as well from introductory essays by three established experts.  The text in particular appeals to me, providing not only insights about the compositional nature of each print but also detail on the locales depicted by these two great landscape artists and appropriate historical information.  There is room for improvement in "Hokusai and Hiroshige"--I would have preferred more standard romanizations for some Japanese words and the inclusion of an index covering well more than just print titles--but overall this is an excellent and valuable volume.
3078143
This book is a treasure.  It's not an 'easy read', as the authors discuss in-depth concepts as far-flung as Art, the Divine, the Creative, energy and All That Is.  It's not a book to be read in a single sitting, though you might find yourself leafing through to see more of the evocative art contained within the covers.

A slim, but illuminating book, the pages are filled with thoughts on using one's own perspective as the basis for a piece of work - assemblage, in this case - and allowing the piece to evolve as it will.  The authors both indicated that often, they had no idea where a piece would take them - they were just trying to keep up, and stay 'on' for the ride.

The observations concerning individual pieces were interesting, but what drew me in was the discussion of the genesis of the work of assemblage.  Allowing the use of certain elements because 'they wanted to be there'-type of thinking, without knowing, or needing to know, the end thrust of a piece before its creation.  The idea of allowing individual pieces to become a group was fascinating to me.

While not couched in traditional layman's terms, the ideas presented are readily grasped - though I found myself going back to certain passages for more insight, at times, and finding something I missed upon first reading.

In all, this is an elegant, somewhat-formal presentation of a pair of authors' art works, their approach towards art, and the tools they have chosen to bring their thoughts and deepest emotions to a physical reality.  There were playful images, and thoughtful discussion as to the effect the work had on the two individuals creating it.

This is a valuable addition to one's art-related library, and well worth the purchase price, as it serves to transport the reader into realms they might not have explored on their own.
3176760
Sometimes you get a book whose physical presentation is as impressive as its content.  Of course, one would expect books on typography to achieve that goal regularly.  "Thinking with Type" leaps well past that basic standard of graphic design related books.  Important content is cleverly integrated into the actual typography of the book itself.  The overall graphic design and the nature and construction of the book are interesting and compelling.  It is also packed with outstanding information.  This is one of those books you might never have any reason to read but if you do happen across it you will find it illuminating.

Author Ellen Lupton has broken this entertaining study of Typography into three sections representing Letter, Text and Grid.  Each section builds on the previous, not in a chronological way as many texts do but in a way promoting expansion of concepts.  How a reader perceives a textual statement is relevant to his ability to interpret the physical nature of the text itself.  Further, a reader's textual understanding is related to his ability to acquire the actual information and in how it is delivered to them.  These ideas are well thought out and creatively presented.

The book is loaded with astute and compelling observations, well addressed to a number of people.  Her comment,  "The reader 'plays' the text as a musician plays an instrument.  The author does not control it's significance.  Like an interpretation of a musical score, reading is a performance of the written word. (pg. 97)" in the context of typographic design provides wonderful visual guidance, very much like sage advice from a favorite teacher.

She also is careful to integrate modern technology with principles thousands of years old.  She says, "The impatience of the digital reader arises from culture, not from the essential character of the display technologies. Users of websites have different expectations than users of print. They expect to feel 'productive,' not contemplative.  They expect to be in search mode, not processing mode.  Users also expect to be disappointed, distracted and delayed by false leads. The cultural habits of the screen are driving changes in design for print, while at the same time affirming print's role as a place where extended reading can occur (pg. 98)."

Along with these instances of great insight you are also learning the basics. Every aspect of typography is covered.  Several pages each are dedicated to topics like kerning, small caps, tracking and line spacing. Leading, I learned, is pronounced like the metal resistant to Superman's x-ray vision due to the original use of lead strips to increase the distance between lines of movable type. Some of the best teaching is done with blocks of type which are designed to specifically demonstrate these characteristics of typography while they are being taught.

This is an outstanding and fun to read book and highly recommended for not only graphic designers but all accumulators of useful knowledge.
2464368
There have been many publications on Modigliani lately and also many exhibitions (in Paris, London, NY). This particular book, which is the catalogue for a show at the Jewish Museum, is, in my opinion, the most original one in that it attempts to study the artist setting aside all the rest (that is "the myth"). The beautiful reproductions enable the reader to see what a revolutionary portraitist Modigliani was, even sometimes minimalist (to use a fashionable word). The provenance of the works shows that he did have early admirers, and not only among his peers or dealers.
2840919
This book performs a service, much needed: it gives a coherent account of the "King Arthur" stories. The author goes through the massive relevant literature-romances and poems in middle and early modern English, and in various vintages of several other languages-to arrive at a reasonably balanced narrative that gathers all the main characters and the principal tales associated with them. Now, there are probably thousands of stories that impinge on this early constellation of narratives, and more that arise every year in tribute to the perennial fascination of those bright initial inventions. But it is these core stories that are the important ones, just as are the core stories of the Bible, and some few of the Greek myths, as basic cultural equipment.
This is a pleasant book to read, by a scholar, but not "scholarly". It is a medium-format glossy with many paintings and drawings by pre-Raphaellites like Beardsley and Burne-Jones that enhance the romance and magic that is so much of the appeal of the stories. There are wide margins to hold the occasional explanatory sidebar, as well as boxes convenient to--but out of the way of--the narrative flow, that discuss the bigger topics . Each of the stories is smoothly presented, with a seamless (but indicated) transition from Andrea Hopkin's connecting narratives to passages using the actual words (rendered into modern English) of the principal teller of the tale at hand, be it Chrtien, or Geoffrey, or some anonymous medieval writer. More than one writer may contribute his bit to a particular story, but the connecting material keeps the telling coherent and compact. This technique gives us a bit of a sense of the corporate authorship of these "legends", and some of the flavor of the individual style-especially Mallory's, whose words can be presented to us almost as they were written.
This book does, I think, succeed admirably, but I object to the lack of index. There is a list of the principal characters, and a glossary, but neither of these is cross-referenced by page number to the text. This book is not, strictly speaking, a work of fiction (tradition frowns upon indexing fiction!), though its "facts" happen to be the fictions of other writers. It deserves and requires an index. If it survives to a subsequent edition that repairs this lack, it will deserve a five-star rating.
4379668
The incredible content of this book has already been well-defended by many reviewers here, so I only want to mention something about the style. He is dealing with topics involving tragic abuse and exploitation, yet there are many moments of humor and biting wit.  I think we HAVE to laugh at racism (although that doesn't mean we shouldn't take it seriously, too). Examples of subtle humor: "The dissection of dead colleagues became something of a cottage industry among nineteenth-century craniometricians".  "Agassiz did not spend all his time in Philadelphia reviling black waiters".  This book is very important for the study of scientific racism and is also a joy to read!
254076
This is a book for the serious historian of design or architecture -- while the many photographs are all oustanding, and, in particular, the photos from Country Life are truly some of the most extraordinary interior photos of the 20th century [notwithstanding the complaints of the prior reviewer] --- this is not in the least a coffee table book and those seeking such should look elsewhere.  Rather, this superlative volume is a landmark in the intellectual history of Anglo-American design aesthetics and will likely not be equalled in the future. Of course, it's not at all surprising that the book is OOP --- the sophisticated audience for this subject is quite distinct from the acquisition-minded, typical subscriber to Architectural Digest.
386625
Something about "The Tales of Ise" really grows on you. If you are expecting characterization and psychological depth or even just a continuous narrative, you won't find it here. In fact, most any of the standards by which we tend to judge literature nowadays are conspicuous in their absence. And yet it doesn't seem to matter. The grace, elegance, and intense regard for the varieties of emotional experience found in these episodic vignettes gets you all the same.

There is also much of historical interest in this work, and that helps it out a little, too. First of all, in terms of literary history, this is definitely a transitional work, as the translator points out in her introduction. In the Kokinshu poetry anthology, for instance, each poem is preceded by a short prose passage explaining its social and situational context, but the poem is the main thing. In later prose narratives like the "Tale of Genji" or the many literary diaries, poems pop up in the characters' conversations but the story is paramount. "Tales of Ise" falls somewhere in-between. The poems are still much in focus, but the prose surrounding them has increased in length, importance, and development, transcending the status of headnotes though serving a similar function. And in terms of social history, this is of great interest, too, for each story gives us a precious fleeting glimpse of Heian courtier society and its values, and of the role of poetry in their social interactions (romantic and otherwise).

As far as waka (or tanka, as we call it today) poetry goes, these were some of the best I've read. It is readily apparent that this was still a relatively new poetic form, fresh and full of possibilities not yet hackneyed and worn thin (this would start to ensue soon enough). The emotion in them seems less affected and stylized, though definitely sublimated by the form's poetic conventions.

It should be noted too that this is definitely the definitive version of this work in English. McCullough has given us a very careful and scholarly translation that is nonetheless lively and literary. Her introduction is informative and extremely helpful in understanding the Tales, and each episode is annotated for specific info (in the back of the book, so that you can consult it if curious or not as you please). There is also a concise discussion of the different manuscripts of "Tales of Ise" and their textual histories, and a translation of the Kokinshu poems that also appear here, often in a different context that alters the import of the poem. So this charming classic has been given the classic treatment it so richly merits.
2751336
Whilst the observation is hardly original, it still deserves emphasizing: America's finest, most courageous university presses are the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries' nearest equivalent to those medieval monks who kept civilized scholarship's lamp burning while, outside the cloisters, Goths and Huns rampaged. Such presses have placed all of us who care for the life of the mind into an intellectual and moral debt that we have no chances of repaying. As a good example of what they can achieve - not just in terms of disseminating sharp and astute prose, but in conveying it via fine, clear, typo-free print on satisfyingly opaque paper - we need only examine MULTICULTURALISM AND THE POLITICS OF GUILT.

This quietly and learnedly devastating appraisal of Political Correctness in all its forms is an authoritative - indeed, indispensable - survey of intellectual corruption, if not from China to Peru, then at least in Europe and the Western Hemisphere (by no means the United States alone). There should be no doubt about Paul Gottfried's expertise, breadth of reading, courtesy towards antagonists as well as towards allies, and diagnostic skill. His latest book is not cheap, but it represents very good value for money.
1868874
Disclosure: Roy Kehl, the principal author and researcher of this book, was a good friend and colleague for many years. I do not know the other author, David R. Kirkland.

That said, this is objectively an important book for anyone interested in Steinway pianos. Roy's fascination with these instruments (as he often told me, and as he outlines in the preface) dated to his childhood. Roy's mind had a natural bent towards detail, even arcana; and this trait served him in good stead with this book.  (In addition to Steinway pianos, he was exhaustively familiar with Skinner organs and the Chicago mass-transit system.)

The volume is not as exhaustively complete as one might wish; for example, though extreme care is given in reproducing the minutiae of stringing schedules, the plate-casting codes are not mentioned. I have bumped into piano tuners who can't interpret these--usually a combination of numbers and letters at the end of the plate near the tail. Like a silversmith's hallmarks, they give precise dating of the casting of the iron plate (also called the harp). The plate code will give more precise information even than the serial number, unless one is able to dig into the company's actual ledgers. (And never fear: the serial numbers are here, so you can get a rough fix on the year of manufacture, if you are blessed with a Steinway of your own.)

This is a minor quarrel with a uniformly interesting book. The volume also contains interesting photographs of soundboards and company logos, and a lot of detail on the model numbers. Some will regret the paucity of photographs of actual specimens of these models (Centennial D, anyone?). However, the book also reproduces the company ledgers showing the dispatching of pianos to John Lennon, George Gershwin, FDR and others.

The book, in short, is partly coffee-table book and partly scholarly resource. A scholarly coffee-table book, then. Roy is no longer with us, unfortunately, but his book and his research--and of course Mr. Kirkland's as well-- will remain as a legacy and inspiration.
959004
This is an important publication.  It is, at the same time, a beautiful photo-book and a deeply interesting cultural essay.  The photographs are excellent, and the accompanying text is interesting and well-written. The graphic illustrations of the different tattoo types are superb, and form a permanent record of the details which are not always clear from photos. Facial tattoos are presented as a beautification, which is in contrast to the general theories. This book highlights that the whole process is steeped in mystery, and we may never know the whole truth. I liked that the main commentary is presented in Burmese, and not just in English, which is not only respectful, but gives the opportunity for local Burmese to learn about this mysterious aspect of their sub-cultures and perhaps will encourage some to do further research.
1478505
If one wants to penetrate beyond a plodding rehash of Hitler and his life, this thoughtful book offers an original perspective filled with many genuine nuggets.....

Given what seems an uninspiring title and subject, Ryback has created an entertaining book which is both clever and polished.

Be warned though, the perfunctory and probably - given our age - obligatory censures and condemnations do appear with necessary regularity.

Still, a book of genuine worth and insight. Recommended.