Seen at the bookstore this weekend: Rural Studio Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency I've written about the late Mr. Mockbee before--I believe he is one of the finest architects ever to practice, and certainly the best to come out of Auburn University. This book chronicles his work as founder and guiding light of the Auburn University School of Architecture's Rural Studio. Didn't get it, but did put it on my arm-long list of stuff I want for my birthday. I did get Chesty--The Story of Lieutenant General Lewis B. Puller . Puller is the embodiment of a United States Marine. Famous quote, during the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir--"We've been looking for the enemy for several days now. We've finally found them. We're surrounded. That simplifies our problem of getting to these people and killing them." Also got America at War in Color--Unique Images of the American Experience of World War II , which has a ton of color photos that I hadn't seen before. (My point of reference here is my old Marshall Cavendish multi-volume Illustrated Encyclopedia of World War II which is even more full of color photos) Sometimes it's hard to relate to the past from black and white images, and we sometimes fail to make the connection that the subjects of the photos lived and moved in the same polychrome world in which we live. It's jarring to even think of a bright, sunny day in Occupied France, or to see Goering and Hitler with life running in them, or to see concentration camp prisoners with life running out of them. (It's a good book just for the pictures--the narrative and captions are rife with errors of punctuation and spelling and fact.)
posted by Terry at 2:07:00 PM