Yokainoshima: Island of Monsters by Charles Fréger

Posted on December 8, 2016 by pagesofjulia

A rich collection of photography explores the Japanese mythology that both celebrates and protects longstanding traditions.

yokainoshima

Yokainoshima is a lushly beautiful collection by photographer Charles Fréger (Wilder Mann: The Image of the Savage), with commentary by experts on his Japanese subjects. Yōkai are “spirits, ghosts and other monsters,” or, literally, “bewitching apparitions.” On Yokainoshima, the “island of monsters,” and in Japanese culture, these gods and ghosts emphasize links to other worlds, in which humans are not the only inhabitants.

The bulk of Yokainoshima is filled with nearly 200 glossy color images of masked and costumed performers representing specific yōkai in grassy fields, beaches, forests and snowfields. Standing alone, these powerful, vibrant photographs offer stories and evoke emotions. Descriptions of the depicted characters, groups and customs (located at the back of the book) elucidate the mysteries offered by the images: seasonal rites requesting fertility, abundance and protection. Short essays portray a culture defined by its spirits, monsters and connections, enriching Fréger’s striking visual art.

This review originally ran in the November 22, 2016 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 8 pieces of straw.

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Paul Smith’s Cycling Scrapbook

Posted on December 7, 2016 by pagesofjulia

In this love letter to professional cycling, a fashion luminary expresses his passion with visual pop.

cycling-scrapbook

British fashion designer Paul Smith once aspired to be a professional cyclist, and his love for the sport has persisted over the decades. Paul Smith’s Cycling Scrapbook presents assorted ephemera accompanied by Smith’s casual commentary, with a brief foreword by Scottish cyclist David Millar.

Smith has an impressive collection of cycling jerseys, pennants, advertisements and publications specific to professional road and track racing. Chapter headings present themes and artifacts, including racing personalities, events like grand tours and one-day classics, Smith’s own bicycles and what he refers to as “the look.” He admires the individual histories of heroes like Fausto Coppi, Jacques Anquetil and Eddy Merckx, and Smith’s friends among contemporary racing stars, including Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins. Throughout, Smith’s tone is conversational and self-effacing, even as he is honored to design the 2013 Giro d’Italia’s maglia rosa (leader’s jersey).

Visually stunning and wide-ranging, Paul Smith’s Cycling Scrapbook elegantly marries Smith’s admiration for the heroes of road and track cycling with his passion for design.

This review originally ran in the November 22, 2016 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 7 polka dots.

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Memento Mori: The Dead Among Us by Paul Koudounaris

Posted on December 18, 2015 by pagesofjulia

Photographs of memento mori from around the world illustrate rich relationships with death.

memento mori

Paul Koudounaris (The Empire of Death) presents phenomenal photographs and a fascinating survey of death across cultures and history with Memento Mori: The Dead Among Us. His text is concise but effective, allowing his photography to take the lead. Images are gorgeously rendered in large format and across full spreads. They feature ossuaries, charnel houses and intricate, artistic arrangements of bones, mummies and decorated skeletons from various cultures.

Koudounaris portrays the Torajans of Indonesia, who place their dead in caves, and after the coffins disintegrate, arrange the bones decoratively; the Aymara Indians of Bolivia, who keep treasured skulls in their homes and ask them for advice; and the elaborate, even decadent, Catholic ossuaries created in response to Protestant reforms. Buddhists gilded certain mummies; Rwandans set up memorial vaults. Wrapped in a blue satin cover, with more than 500 illustrations, Memento Mori offers a striking tribute to many ways of remembering and honoring death and the dead.

This review originally ran in the November 27, 2015 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 7 perspectives.

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For a Love of His People: The Photography of Horace Poolaw by Nancy Marie Mithlo and the Smithsonian Institution

Posted on December 18, 2014 by pagesofjulia

Arresting images of his community, taken by a Kiowa photographer, enriched by commentary.

for love

Horace Poolaw (1906-1984), a Kiowa Indian from Oklahoma, was an avid photographer who never made a living from that passion. For a Love of His People: The Photography of Horace Poolaw is the first major collection of his work, and serves as companion to a 2014 exhibition under the same name at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City. Poolaw’s own photographs of his family and community, many never before published, are accompanied by related artwork in a collection of more than 150 images; these striking, vibrant images are not the only appealing aspect of this beautiful book. Essays and interviews by scholars, natives and non-natives, artists and activists and Poolaw’s family put his work in artistic, political and historical context, and portray him as documentarian of his time, place and people. These diverse contributors express Poolaw’s intention to preserve his piece of the 20th century, and complement the richness of his vivid work.

This review originally ran in the November 28, 2014 gift issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 6 feathers.

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Great Bear Wild: Dispatches from a Northern Rainforest by Ian McAllister

Posted on December 17, 2014 by pagesofjulia

Beautiful photographs of the Great Bear Rainforest, at risk on the west coast of Canada.

great bear
Great Bear Wild: Dispatches from a Northern Rainforest is an impassioned plea for the conservation of the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, photographed and written by Ian McAllister (“talk to anyone in the Great Bear about wildlife and eventually Ian’s name will come up,” writes Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in the foreword). This distinctive coastal region is threatened by pipelines, oil tankers and liquefied-natural-gas transport; environmental groups and First Nation people are coming together in the fight to protect the enormous biodiversity, cultural heritage and immense beauty at stake.

McAllister, an accomplished photographer and longtime resident of the Great Bear, has local connections and a deep understanding of the issues at hand. Readers can flip through his work solely for the breathtaking photographs–of bat stars, spirit bears, sea wolves, salmon and many other remarkable creatures–but this accomplished collection also begs to be consumed chapter by chapter, for its ardent, beautifully written, informative prose.

This review originally ran in the November 28, 2014 gift issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 9 herring eggs.

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Ships, Clocks, and Stars: The Quest for Longitude by Richard Dunn and Rebekah Higgitt

Posted on December 15, 2014 by pagesofjulia

The historic quest for naval navigation measurements, heavily illustrated and enlightening.

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For the tercentenary of Britain’s Longitude Act of 1714, the Royal Museums Greenwich offers an exhibition and accompanying book, Ships, Clocks, and Stars: The Quest for Longitude. For centuries, longitude, which locates a place on the Earth on an east-west basis, was impossible to track at sea, posing not only economic but safety challenges. This issue was eventually solved in the 1700s, largely by British scientists and philosophers, including astronomers, inventors and clockmakers. The story of quest for a solution–first define the question, then ascertain a reliable way to determine longitude while out in the open ocean, then build reliable and consistent tools–is one of innovation, cooperation and competition, as well as science. Richard Dunn and Rebekah Higgitt, both researchers and museum curators, relate the quest for longitude in accessible prose, complementing the text with more than 150 images, maps and artwork. While the ample notes will be welcomed by academic readers, the intriguing and varied illustrations and lively subject matter–a first-class adventure tale–will entertain anyone who dreams of travel and exploration.

This review originally ran in the November 28, 2014 gift issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 6 degrees.

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gift reviews

Posted on October 23, 2014 by pagesofjulia

It’s that time of year again: coming up! Gift reviews! Oh wait, I should explain. I was well into telling Husband about this year’s prospects for gift reviews with Shelf Awareness, when he stopped me to ask who they are gifts for. I see I was unclear. These books are sent to me for *special* gift reviews: meaning, they are reviewed for a Shelf Awareness special issue that reviews books that might be given as gifts in the holiday season. Often these are coffee table style books. I’ve been writing gift reviews for, oh, several years for the Shelf – you can see some here.

So I’m excited this year to have received three big, beautiful coffee table books for gift-reviewing. Husband mostly no longer gets excited for me when books come in the mail! so I especially wanted to share these with you.

Ships, Clocks, and Stars: The Quest for Longitude by Richard Dunn and Rebekah Higgittships

For a Love of His People: The Photography of Horace Poolaw by Nancy Marie Mithlo and the Smithsonian Institutionfor love

Great Bear Wild: Dispatches from a Northern Rainforest by Ian McAllister, with a foreword by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.great bear

Beautiful, no? Reviews to come… oh, but if you want an early tip, let me say that I adored The Story of My Heart by Richard Jefferies, republished with commentary by Terry Tempest Williams and Brooke Williams. As just a tiny little book, both a pleasure to read and thought-provoking, and easily taken in small pieces, I think it would make an ideal stocking stuffer for… well, any number of different loved ones, really.

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The Book of Jezebel: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Lady Things by Anna Holmes

Posted on December 5, 2013 by pagesofjulia

A colorful and clever reference guide to life as a woman that readers can enjoy straight through, cover to cover.

jezebel

The Book of Jezebel, edited by the creator of the popular feminist website with contributions from many of its writers, is an illustrated encyclopedia of “lady things.” The Jezebel definition of lady things includes body parts, clothing, historical and contemporary women in pop culture, literature and politics–and women’s issues related to feminism, reproductive rights and relationships. It also contains an “ode to female friendship,” (mostly) humorous attacks on certain public figures and plenty of photographs and illustrations that add to the book’s informational value and its hilarity.

Although often funny, The Book of Jezebel is serious in its underlying intent, aspiring to balance empowerment with femininity. It’s not just for women, but for men who love them as well.

This review originally ran in the November 29, 2013 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 8 steps.

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Football Nation: Four Hundred Years of America’s Game

Posted on December 4, 2013 by pagesofjulia

A multifaceted, pictorial perspective on America’s favorite sport.

football nationa

With the aid of awe-inspiring images from the Library of Congress, Susan Reyburn (Baseball Americana) masterfully recounts a detailed history of the gridiron in Football Nation. From colonial times to the commercialism of contemporary professional and college ball, Reyburn offers a look at football’s journey toward becoming the most popular sport in the country.

With previously unreleased images, including cartoons, illustrations and photographs, Reyburn traces the historical relationship between the United States and the game. Fans will gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for the sport, but even casual followers of the game will be enthralled with an unprecedented depth of perspective on this glamorized spectacle in history and in popular culture. Football Nation is an appealing read for anyone remotely interested in what many call the United States’ most popular sport–and how it got that way.

This review originally ran in the November 29, 2013 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

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On Arctic Ground: Tracking Time Through Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve by Debbie S. Miller

Posted on November 29, 2012 by pagesofjulia

A call for the preservation of Alaska’s natural heritage, with exquisite photos.

At 23 million acres, Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve is the largest single unit of public lands in the United States, none of it permanently protected. Rich in oil, gas and coal, it is also home to an astounding diversity of plants and animals, many endangered and threatened; the migratory birds of six continents begin their lives in the Reserve. Debbie S. Miller’s On Arctic Ground is a striking plea for the conservation of this irreplaceable natural space.

Although it can be read cover to cover, the best way to enjoy this book is to take its short chapters one by one. Each provides mind-boggling details–like the bar-tailed godwit’s nonstop, 7,000-mile migration from western Alaska to New Zealand–and makes the starkly moving point that this incomparable area is highly vulnerable. Breathtaking full-page pictures throughout offer stunning portrayals of the Reserve’s strange and spectacular life forms.

This review originally ran in the Nov. 23, 2012 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

Rating: 8 caribou.

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