A Pile of Good Books

I receive many books in the mail, both ones I have requested and many that I hadn't. Some are revelatory which inspire words and others don't. I even receive many which I like but they don't inspire many words beyond a couple sentences. I usually keep those close by for a few extra weeks, hoping for more thoughts to brew and words to form - most times that doesn't happen and I move on to an easier subject. This post is a list of books that fall into that latter category.



If you are lucky enough to live in Berlin you might discover an issue of Bertrand Fleuret's Remora hanging on a light post or garbage pile. 16 pages of Bertrand's idiosyncratic photographs xeroxed for the masses to enjoy, ignore, tear apart or mistakenly piss on. Each is like a hand in the water signaling where the ship has sunk.



Mike Slack's High Tide was published in a very limited number (75 copies) by The Ice Plant in 2006. Mike's brilliant trilogy of books OKOKOK, Scorpio, and Pyramids feature his quirky polaroids of small details which fill the world with meaning. High Tide is a small catalog of polaroids made off TV screens of actors in close-up and with eyes closed. More like meditating than acting, each seems to have momentarily dropped their profession and found a personal truth.



Ed Templeton's Coming to Grips was released in an edition of 500 by the Japanese publisher Super Labo in 2009. Coming to Grips is a small 28 page booklet/'zine of portraits of Templeton's friends looking like they hit life head on. The physically damage is metaphor for the psychological within a community where innocence is lost quickly. Not so much a warning but a celebration of lives lived mostly on their own terms.



Lucia Nimcova's Unofficial published by Zoneattive Edizioni, 2008 (ISBN: 88-89303-08-5) is two books in a cardboard box which question the legacy of socialism in Nimcova's hometown of Humenné, Slovakia. One book is of mostly black and white photographs made throughout the 1980s by Juraj Kammer - a contracted professional photographer who documented social and political events.



The other book is made of contemporary color photographs taken by Lucia Nimcova, some of which comment on the imagined political power and lack of credible influence indicative of the town's leaders.



Guadalupe Gaona's Pozo de Aire (Well of Air) published by Vox in 2009 (ISBN: 978-987-1073-24-5) is a small hardcover book of image and poetry about memory, loss, and family. The elephant in the room is the disappearance of Gaona's father to the hand's of the military junta of Argentina in 1977 but Pozo de Aire isn't saturated with the overdramatic which could so easily taint such a project. Instead, the family summer villa on a lake in the mountains provides a meditative setting where old family photos flashback and present photos question the tranquility of the surroundings.



Terri Weifenbach's Another Summer sits in interesting relation to Pozo de Aire. Published by The Thunderstorm Press in 2009 (ISBN: 0-9841944-0-1) Another Summer is a small book of Weifenbach's recent work, directly personal it is centered around a summer holiday and discoveries made by a couple of bleach blond children. One gets the sense of Weifenbach trying to use photography to stave off time and remain in what seems to be an idyllic setting for growth and learning for these two children. For me, it achieves a melancholy increased by nostalgia that is hard to take - what does that say about me?



Thomas Manneke's Vilnius was published in 2006 by Artimo (ISBN: 90-8546-050-6). For 4 months Manneke lived in the Lithuanian city of Vilnius, photographing without a plan and "wherever people would take me." The result is a partial portrait of a city and its youth culture in transition now that the state has become a part of the European Union. As with Manneke's other book Odessa (Schaden, 2008), many of the portraits are of young women - most seem to have become his muses.



Wout Berger's Like Birds was published in 2009 by Galerie van Kranendonk (ISBN: 978-90-72697-09-7). In Like Birds Berger drops his view camera to the ground for often exquisitely beautiful, spatially confusing photographs of plant life. I find the book oddly inconsistent with half of the photographs inspired and surprising and the other half familiar and ordinary. A brief suite of pictures made of cityscapes might be introducing the notion of man's negative impact on nature but the vibrancy of color and wealth of the plant life belies such a reading.

On sending books for review: I really appreciate people's generosity but I would rather not receive books without request. I respect too much the passion, money and effort involved in making any book that it makes me feel bad when something shows up unannounced and doesn't appeal to my fickle tastes. You are welcome to send an email introduction but realize that the chances something will inspire a posting are very slim and I would rather save you the expense and waste of a book. Thank you for your understanding.

Errata Editions Limited Edition Sets

The newest limited edition sets of our Books on Books series arrived safely to our studio a few weeks ago. We shipped out all of the pre-orders the day after they arrived and want to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who is supporting this publishing project.

This set which are numbers 5 to 8 include William Klein: Life is Good & Good for You in New York, Yutaka Takanashi: Toshi-e, David Goldblatt: In Boksburg and Koen Wessing: Chili, September 1973.

To order a set of all four please visit the Errata Editions website and click on the 'SHOP' page to purchase using our convenient Paypal buttons.



A very limited number of sets of numbers 1 to 4 are still available. This set includes; Eugene Atget: Photograph de Paris, Walker Evans: American Photographs, Sophie Ristelhueber: Fait, and Chris Killip: In Flagrante.



One improvement for the trade edition of the Books on Books series has been a redesign of the dustjackets. Although we liked the way the older belly-band style jackets looked initially, in the actual stores they were very problematic. The belly band often slipped to the bottom of the cover throwing off the entire design of the book, got torn frequently, and due to the paper choice - they attracted dirt like a vacuum. Although we had carefully chosen a nicer and more expensive paper stock for the jackets, it just didn't survive well in the retail environment.

So, after careful consideration we have created a new design which is a full jacket on a matte laminate paper which will last longer and can be cleaned.

Since this is a series we are concerned for buyers who purchased a couple of the first books and would be bothered that the next have a different look. So to address this we have printed up a few hundred newly designed jackets for the older books so all of your Books on Books can have the same look. These will be available through our website as a courtesy, with the only charge being to cover shipping costs. See the 'SHOP' page for ordering details.



The newest trade editions seen above should be in stores in the next couple weeks. As always, thank you for the support. Meanwhile I am at work on editions 9 to 12...

Distance and Slow Boat by Onaka Koji

Yutaka Takanashi in an interview once described his approach while working on Toshi-e as, "...two conflicting creatures settled into my body. One is a 'hunter of images', aiming exclusively to shoot down the invisible, and the other is a 'scrap picker' who can only believe in what is visible." Onaka Koji, a contemporary scrap picker to Takanashi has produced several books over the past ten years, of which, Slow Boat and Distance are my favorites.

In Distance, a book published in 1996 by Mole, Koji wanders to the outskirts of an unspecified city and into its industrial wastelands. His photos rejoice in the weighty infrastructure of rail lines, roadways, and finally the worn down port where ships sit awaiting the next economic boom.

Aptly named, Distance feels like the eyes of a wanderer who is alone and wishes to remain to his own discoveries. Whether that be lines of oil drums on a deserted path or a view of a bus station and telephone lines made through a filthy window. There is a connection with place but not with the population. people are seen but they are reduced to gestures - a reminder that this isn't a beautiful apocalypse but a functioning, living city.

His black and white tonalities are rich and dense - at moments Koudelka might be lurking in the heavy shadows. The printing of Distance accentuates the heaviness and in general, is not a great book beyond the stunning photos. Its cover is atrociously designed with heavy-handed silver foil typography and a textured stock but don't let that spoil the photographs.



Distance is long out-of-print and way overpriced on the secondary book market so I recommend Slow Boat as a fine alternative. Published originally in 2003 and re-published by Schaden in 2008, Slow Boat would have made my 'best of' list for that year if I had known about it.

Again, Koji is a distanced observer of life both within and at the margins of another unspecified city. Much of this work was rediscovered by Koji and appealed to his sense that he had no recognition or memory of making them. He also makes mention of assembling the sequence not with a logical framework in mind but "just in accordance with my own feelings at the time."

Compared to Distance, the complicated framing remains but his tonal scale in Slow Boat has shifted slightly to an overall greyish cast. This veil of flatness creates a calmer mood suited to what appear to be lazy days within the city. There doesn't seem to be work being done (none is directly shown) and when pedestrians are in the streets, they tranquilly stroll along under tangles of electric and phone lines.

I see a kinship between Yutaka Takanashi and Onaka Koji in both practice and descriptions of contemporary life in Japan. Takanashi raced toward Tokyo in a sports car describing the landscape as a fleeting moment blurring at the edges, while in a couple of Koji's images a blimp can be seen, drifting over the city - its airy flight setting a different pace towards the city.

Three books from Willem Van Zoetendaal

Willem Van Zoetendaal is a publisher, gallerist and designer from Amsterdam who is responsible for releasing an interesting roster of books of contemporary Dutch photography. He came to my attention because of his elegant design skills and book production. Some of you may already have some of his book titles in your collections as he has published a couple of Paul Kooiker and Arno Nolan's artist books.

My favorite of Paul Kooiker's to date is Room Service released in 2008. Kooiker has published a few books in a series which take on full bodied nudes as a subject and Room Service does so with them posing in front of what I gather is his personal book collection. His approach is tight framings of torsos, legs and breasts that are at times reminiscent of Brandt - that is, if Brandt had just completed a workshop with Elmer Batters or G.P. Fieret.

Their charm is locked in the technically rough descriptions which allow flare, unnatural color fading, and ultra roughly screened print reproductions. For book lovers, there is a tension between which gains the most attention, the nudes, or our inherent interest in scanning bookcases for recognizable titles.

The third aspect of the work is the printing. Many of these seem to be rescanned images from offset prints as the dot patterns are huge, often reveling their four color matrix. For those who enjoy the quirks and superficial qualities of ink laying on paper, this one is a must see.



Another interesting title although entirely in Dutch with no English translations is Salto Mortale. Salto Mortale means a "dangerous undertaking" and charts the life of the Dutch owned airline company Fokker which dominated civil aviation from 1912 to 1996, the year they went bankrupt.

Using around 150 archive photos mostly from the 20s and 30s (and a lot of text), Salto Mortale explores the earliest plane designs and adaptations which led the company into producing many military aircraft used in World War 1 including the Fokker Dr.1 which was made famous by the German pilot Manfred von Richthofen, commonly known as the Red Baron.



Again, the lack of my ability to read the text is the downside of this book as it is very text heavy, but the beautiful archive photos make it an interesting find.



One last title to mention, Das Prinzip by Johannes Schwartz has me at a slight loss for explanation. The first publication from Schwartz, it presents one image each from several of his series. As a selection, I am drawn to his individual photographs but the larger relationship implied by the title is purposely confusing. The curator Moritz Kung mentions in his essay that accompanies the book, "Das Prinzip (The Principle) suggests a truth or a dogma, which is however not present in the various works... Unless of course one were to define 'deceptiveness' as a principle."

Schwartz turns his lens to still lifes which may be constructions in some cases, and others 'found' encounters with objects in others. I am reminded of some of Jeff Wall's non-personed compositions but Schwartz draws out their narrative and potential complexity through the titles of each work. Overgrown weeds and dirt might be alluding to floral patterns found in carpets in his work Scattered Rug (2005). His photos of children's playhouses lose their innocent qualities and take on a darker edge from their rough and makeshift appearances. In Das Meer (The Lake, 2004) pieces of a jigsaw puzzle are scattered on an aqua surface, within the chaos several rectangles of completed sections sit turned upside down.

What each adds up to or connects them is ambiguous and that is obviously Schwartz's strategy. On the surface this might appear to be a simple exhibition catalog with its cool and somewhat detached presentation but turning from page to page, we strive to search out those connections. What we are left with are a series of detached realities which accomplish what many books don't - Das Prinzip compels me to think.

Lost Boy Mountain by Lester B. Morrison

Phone call recorded by Mr. Whiskets to Lester B. Morrison on 1/29/2010.

Whiskets: Les, the tape is rolling. Can you still hear me? I can barely hear you now.

LBM: Yeah, loud and clear. What do you want to know?

Whiskets: OK, so I got your new book in the mail. Is there any background about yourself you want to fill me in on?

LBM: Well, maybe it makes sense... (tape inaudible) ...I dropped out of the University of Rochester in 1991. I was sort of a local pariah in Rochester so I decided to move back to Minnesota. In my spare time I started to write my novel Lost Boy Mountain. I've been working on it for the last 19 years.

Whiskets: Is that how you met Alec? In Minnesota?

LBM: Soth? Yeah, I knew him a long time ago. I was a few years ahead of him in high school. We reconnected when I moved back.

Whiskets: What do you do for work? Are you an artist?

LBM: Not really. When I moved back I desperately needed some work and as I'd had some bio lab experience in college, I figured I might try to land a something at the teaching hospital but unfortunately my sketchy past came back to haunt me.

Whiskets: Sketchy past?

LBM: In college I designed an experiment that proposed to attenuate a certain strain of bacteria using gibberellin, a plant growth hormone. I didn't know much about the biochemistry, but I figured that, bacteria being simple plants, this stuff might do weird things to other organisms. It sure grew big fuckin' watermelons! Only problem was, I picked an organism called Pasturella Avicida for my test case - its common name is fowl cholera but I didn't know that. If it had gotten loose, it could easily have wasted all of Rochester's bird populace. Thanks to the superior wisdom of the lab director, that didn't happen, but for a long time afterwards, every time I'd see a dead bird I'd weep like a newborn. I did manage to smuggle out five grams of pharmaceutically pure gibberelic acid. I guess I could have grown some killer tomatoes, but I finally lost the stuff. Message to self: Check pockets before doing laundry.

Whiskets: Can you repeat why you dropped out of college? I think the tape didn't record that.

LBM: In my sophomore year I started doing psychedelics in a rather serious way. Some friends got hold of a bunch of Sandoz tabs. Sandoz was the only pharmaceutical outfit ever to produce pure lysergic acid diethylamide-25 and ergotamine in a form that looked like Pop-Rocks. Ergotamine comes from a fungal rust that grows on certain cereal grains. In high doses can cause vascular stasis, thrombosis and gangrene. That's how my buddy Ben lost his foot and resulted in me having extreme panic attacks that forced me to drop out of school. Well, that and the foul cholera episode. When it isn't turning you into a leper, the ergotamine slots so perfectly into the complex serotonin metabolism of the primate cortex. Brings about some random stochastic happenstance, some entropic slippage where - although you have the taste of cat piss in your mouth - you also find yourself trying to poke out the eyes of god. The morning after my first trip, I finally understood colors.

Whiskets: Ergotamine Pop Rocks?

LBM:Yeah, that shit's crazy, I haven't touched it after Ben lost his foot. Last year I got my hands on an entire pint of liquid LSD. This was the stuff that freaks in California were using to make blotter acid back in the 60s. But I had to be different, blotter acid and tie-dye isn't my speed. I decided to bottle the stuff mixed with dimethyl sulfoxide. That way, just touching will start you on the way to squeegeeing your third eye. I decided to make some quick cash so I crafted my own burette out of the tube of a Bic pen and marked up graduations up the side indicating how much liquid is in the thing. I attached a stopcock arrangement at the bottom so I could portion out small quantities into these tiny amber bottles.

Whiskets: You were selling liquid LSD mixed with DMSO?

LBM: It was one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time. But damn, it was painstaking work filling those hundreds of tiny bottles. Turn the stopcock just a little, drizzle one full, cap it, next. There did get to be a rhythm to it after a while. But nothing is perfect because each time, a little bit would dribble down the side of the vial, and pretty soon my fingers were drenched. I couldn't wipe it off - this stuff was precious - so I just let it build up into a sticky goo, eventually it completely covered my hands. With the DMSO mixed in, I was tripping pretty much 24 hours a day.

Skin is porous you know. It actually breathes, which is why you will die if you paint yourself all over. I wasn't dying exactly, but my hands were starting to breathe. And I mean like, BREATHING. It was fascinating just watching them, but I had a hundred vials left to fill and I needed all my concentration. Without it, I knew there was a high probability I'd be counting the molecules in the tabletop inside of a couple minutes. But oh man, it was getting difficult. Little peripheral flashes at first, you know? Those darters you get? And then there was that optic nerve thing. I could close my eyes, sort of bear down on the muscles behind my forehead and an electric purple Major Fifth chord would arc across the inside of my skull.

I got nearly all the bottles filled before I started floating out of my body. The tension was incredible. Like before a storm. Big thunderheads rolling in, the temperature is dropping and the wind comes up, turning the leaves over the way it does, rustling through your hair and clothes. I couldn't stand it any longer. I licked my hands all over, drank what was left in the burette, then knocked back a couple vials just to make sure I'd be good and dosed. I still have super-power acid night vision, cognitive invisibility and... (phone disconnects) (tape ends)

Editor's note: Lester's book Lost Boy Mountain comes in a baggie filled with what looks like floor sweepings. I do not advise you handle it for prolonged periods of time.

Blackout New York by Rene Burri

On November 9th, 1965, a Northeast power failure effected, New York State, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey and even parts of Ontario, Canada. It was said that over 25 million people were caught in the early evening blackout which lasted until the morning hours of the following day. The cause was a wrongly inserted relay switch in a power station near Niagara Falls. Rene Burri ventured out into the darkness with a handful of films to photograph and the resulting images have been published in a limited edition, Blackout New York from Moser books.

Photographing only by flashlight, candle light, or car light, Burri pointed his camera at the stranded commuters as they try to deal with the situation. Some gather in Grand Central to wait it out while others pack onto buses and cabs to find their way home. There is the suggestion of nervousness but panic isn't present.

Looking through Blackout New York, one starts to notice how small amounts of light - providing the minimum amount of information - spur the mind to fill in the bigger picture. Burri's slow black and white films, push-processed to build density in any middle-tone and highlight in the exposure results in super contrasty images that are often abstract. In one only a hand holding a lighter to the dial of a phone is recorded surrounded by vast amounts of black. The opening image features several people barely registered on the film, mostly described by flashes of white from their shirt collars. It takes us a few moments to adjust to these pictures. In a funny way this book is also partly about photography's technical limitations under these extreme conditions.

There is a fine line between underexposed images that succeed despite their flaw and those that succumb to it. In this edit there are a few images that just aren't resolved enough to merit inclusion - the aforementioned opening image for instance. When there is enough of a record made, the images glow from various light sources and people appear like apparitions out of the velvety black.

Nicely printed, Blackout New York reproduces the images as mostly double page spreads which means they run across the gutter. This design choice is distracting as the images, due to their limited detail, need fewer hurdles for us to jump over to decipher them.

At Arles last year I heard that Burri had an installation in a blackened room where the viewers were given flashlights to view these photographs. I didn't see the show but I can guess that would be an interesting way to experience these photos. In the dark with a slight sensation of unease resting on your shoulders. Your flashlight in front of you darting here and there, trying to pick up what little there is to see.

Errata Editions Limited Edition Sets

For everyone who is asking themselves "Where are the new Errata books?," they will be arriving into NY in the next week. There was a three week delay in our shipment from China due to new freighting regulations concerning Homeland Security and our shipment was held in port before we could secure clearance. We had originally expected the books to arrive for packing and delivery to our pre-order customers in the last week of December but they are just arriving to us in this next week.

Please accept our apology, as soon as they arrive to our New York studio we will be immediately shipping them out to those that have pre-ordered. Believe me, we are as excited and impatient to get them in your hands as anyone.

We appreciate your patience and know that once they arrive to your home, you won't be disappointed.

Thank you again for the support. Jeff, Valerie and Ed.

Wonderland: A Fairy Tale of the Soviet Monolith (Reprint) by Jason Eskenazi

Originally Wonderland: A Fairy Tale of the Soviet Monolith was published by De.MO but only half the print run was realized so it sold out quickly and disappeared from everyone's radar far too quickly. Jason has taken on the task of reprinting another run so that those who missed out on the first round can easily acquire a copy now through his publishing company Red Hook Editions. Ordering info can be found here. Below is my original review from July of 2008.

Jason Eskenazi's Wonderland, A Fairy Tale of the Soviet Monolith is the culmination of ten years worth of work describing aspects of contemporary life behind the Iron Curtain. Taking a page from literary fairy tales and children's stories, Wonderland is structured - less as a documentary project - and more as a metaphoric journey into the quirky landscape of the former super power as it shifts from a communist empire to a wild mix of deeply rooted traditions holding out against creeping influence of the west.

Eskenazi, a Guggenheim fellow, opens the book with an image of a woman's back as she pensively looks out an apartment window overlooking Red Square. The flowery patterns of lace curtains hang over our protagonist as a reminder of innocence or perhaps idealism as the real world outside draws her attention. The sequence quickly evolves into the traditional storyline of a fairy tale - a young child is thrust into the world to fend for herself in an almost hallucinatory state, losing her innocence in an unsheltered world.

As the photographer, Eskenazi steers her journey to reflect the changes taking place within the empire. The agrarian culture seems to be far outdated while the more modern industrial infrastructure collapses. The women change from timid peasants covered head to toe in traditional worker garb into miniskirt wearing, hyper-sexualized beings. The only structure that seems to remain strong is with the military where men exercise and wear crisp uniforms but to defend what? An ideology or an empire now split into individual states?

Lingering remnants of statues, now headless, the slaughtering of a goat, and a barber shaving a man's neck are brilliantly sequenced to remind us that the head is now coming off and the state is dissolving into the fantastic. Our protagonist experiences war, poverty, drug addiction and rape while ballerinas and princesses appear in working in factories or wandering through dingy stairwells.



The style of Eskenazi's photography follows the lead of the likes of Gilles Peress -- an accomplishment considering the plethora of bad photojournalism that is far too wrapped up in visual geometry and gymnastics at the expense of deeper content. Eskenazi has learned to make compelling photographs that have the strength of both form and content.

Although my description may make it seem like a complete downer, Wonderland isn't a harsh book on the surface a'la Nachtwey or Richards. The deeper meaning may be dark but like a children's story, it is delivered with the rhythm of adventure into a landscape of the mysterious.

Funded in part by the Joy of Giving Something Foundation, Wonderland has a handcrafted feel to the design with an uncovered book-board cover and exposed spine. My only real criticism would lie with the trim size. At only around 5X7 inches, it seems like larger work forced into too small of a package. A small criticism but noteworthy.

Stalin had once said "We were born to make fairy tales come true." When the wall finally fell it was clear that the fantasy had not been realized to what was promised. As he writes, Eskenazi explored through its remnants "searching for metaphors but realizing, too late, that I had brought my own when I first arrived. And now that it's time to leave, I sit for a few moments on the edge of the bed to assure safe travel, as the Russians do, just before I lock the door, unable to return to what perhaps never was."

Long Live the Large Family by Carl Johan de Geer

The accomplishments of Carl Johan de Geer are far and wide. Photographer, filmmaker, painter, musician, television show creator, novelist, silk screen artist, textile designer, editor of the counter-cultural mag Puss (Kiss) and general outspoken critic of political and social elites. Never heard of him? That isn't uncommon apparently. A week ago I hadn't either.

Geer's book of photographs from 1980 Med Kameran Som Tröst (The Camera as Consolation) looks like one of the undiscovered greats of Scandinavian photography. Four photos to a page - life laid out in quadrants. A new 'zine-style publication from Dashwood Books and the Boo-Hooray Gallery called Long Live the Large Family gives a sense of his extended family from the mid-60s and the early 70s with a similar flavor.

Geer was born into one of Sweden's most powerful families but in the late-50s he started to work against his privilege within the subculture of Sweden's underground art community. His bohemian friends in Stockholm became his camera's subject as they rallied against the status quo with political critiques and sexual openness.

His "style" is that of a quick-handed snapshot. I wouldn't go as far as saying these are great photos individually but together they weave a tone as free and pleasurable as the idea of youth itself. This is not the bitter tears of Nan Goldin twenty years before with the needle and the damage done but a Leftist romp embracing creativity and exuberance among friends. It all has the spirit of change about to happen instead of the capitulation of self medication.

Long Live the Family is a 40 page, staple bound 'zine printed on heavy paper. Its printing isn't perfect but that would be missing the point. It remains as immediate and non-conformist as the subject requires. The reproductions were made from four image panels which make up photo collages he created for a 1979 exhibition at the MoMA in Stockholm. Long Live the Large Family was published in an edition of 250 copies.

For those of you in NYC, check out the exhibition at Boo-Hooray c/o Steven Kasher Gallery at 521 West 23rd street between 10th and 11th avenues. There will be a closing party this Saturday from 6-8pm. Go and check out Carl Johan's books on display, a small archive from Puss magazine, material from the Galleri Karlsson, and the great political silk screen posters that line the walls. Beer and sandwiches have been mentioned.

Photobook Exchange Sale

For a limited time all books on the 5B4 Photobook Exchange are now being offered at 20% off. This discount applies for purchase only. Please contact me at jeffladd99(at)hotmail(dot)com first to make sure the books you are interested in are still available.

Maps by Nicholas Calcott

The 12th Press is a Paris-based publisher which is focusing on small edition photobooks and 'zines. Recently I picked up a copy of their newest publication Maps from Nicholas Calcott, the owner of 12th Press.

Calcott is the author of Maps but his name doesn't appear in or on the book at all - call him an archivist hidden well from view. Maps consists of 10 aerial photographs made over Poland and Eastern Germany by the Luftwaffe just before World War II.

Like satellite surveillance images or those from moon exploration, these photos become abstractions which with the overlying grid and imposition of city names, becomes a fascinating mix of image, text and line.

Farmlands - I assume (or forests maybe) - from this vantage point, are described as varying shades of grey butted against one another like planks of wood. Each photo must represent hundreds of miles worth of area and an interesting aspect for me is seeing how man effects the landscape. In some, chaos reigns from this god's eye view, while in others, man somehow managed to create a beautiful tapestry.

Introducing the information (at the end) that these images were shot by the Luftwaffe obviously taints how we look at these images and the thoughts that follow. German planes effectively bombed many cities in Poland into submission in September 1939. Bombing sorties and the lay of the land were determined by these same maps. Calcott gathered this material from the German Federal Archives.

Maps is handmade with rich inkjet printed 12" square plates on very heavy paper. It is screwpost bound and issued in an edition of 100. More info can be found at the 12th Press website.

Fallen Books by Melissa Dubbin and Aaron S. Davidson

A few years ago I was in Mexico enjoying a great jalapeno-induced mindfuck when I awoke to my bed rocking violently back and forth for a couple seconds. I wasn't sure I hadn't dreamt it until I saw through the darkness of the room the ceiling light slowing from a wide sway. In the morning I asked my wife if she felt the quake since, at the time, her gentle snore hadn't skipped a breath. She said anything she could sleep through wasn't a "real" earthquake even if the earth done quaketh. She's from Mexico City. For her, anything under 6 point 5 is either your imagination or gas.

For those living in areas with heavy seismic activity a common experience might be reshelving books that have toppled from bookcases. A new artist book from Aaron S. Davidson and Melissa Dubbin called Fallen Books explores images taken in libraries after earthquakes have done their worst to the Dewey Decimal System.

Davidson and Dubbin have organized their archive according to a modified Mercalli Scale, a graphic alternative to the Richter Scale that quantifies how strongly an earthquake effects the surface of the earth. Its color code indicates the intensity of the quake as it ripples out from the epicenter. Each photo is accompanied by basic information of date, place and library name. The back of each page is printed with the color as each episode corresponds to the Mercalli Scale.

In their statement, Davidson and Dubbin start by saying that "Books are earthquake proof." A seemingly confusing sentence that leaves me uncertain about what they mean. Many books are damaged to the point of being unusable - spines broken and book blocks wrenched from their cover-boards after great falls. They are hardly "earthquake proof," but I won't dwell on that.

What I will dwell upon is the way the artists chose to reproduce the photographs in what would otherwise be a fascinating book. The images, culled from various sources, are snapshots. They were made a straight documentation of the damage. Bookcases listing heavily off center and piles of books flowing into the aisles described with the passionless eye of an insurance agent. That to me is interesting but the oversized line screen and dot patterns in the reproductions reduce the quality too much for my tastes. Certainly this was a conscious choice and not simply a technical factor.

Fallen Books was published in an edition of 500 copies by Onestar Press. For those who know the publisher, they have put out mostly print-on-demand style books which conform in size and general quality but cover a large artistic range. Interestingly this title (and the recent book from Monica Haller, Riley's Story) departs with an inventive design by Francesca Grassi. Bound with metal screwposts and using uncoated paper stock, my disappointment with the image quality is abated somewhat by the form.

I want to like Fallen Books partly because of the subject but also because it allows a freak like me to take a perverse, vicarious pleasure in thinking of the horror I'd face of finding my own library in piles on the floor. It works on both counts to a point, but the faults leave this hardly earth-shattering.

Nothing But Home by Sebastien Girard

In addition to Alec Soth's Allowing Flowers, the second book about home I'd like to mention is the Toulouse-based photographer Sebastien Girard's new Nothing But Home. Self-published in November of 2009, this made my best of the year list and was one of the only books that I brought home from Paris Photo.

Nothing But Home opens with wall-paper patterned endpages and the quote: "The simplest way is to take up everything again from the beginning, lie down on the grass, and start over, as if one knew nothing." What follows is an almost clinical examination of small details made while Girard's home was being renovated. His style is at times cool and detached and very claustrophobic. He describes with the eye of a building inspector, examining each imperfection which will need attending to during the construction; a paint drip on old faded wallpaper, dangerous bent nails sticking out of a wall joist, loose and wild wiring sprouting from a light socket.

Girard allows no breathing room in these photos. Perhaps metaphor for the extreme personal attention one gives to rebuilding of home, he keeps his framing tight. The artificial lighting gives the perception that all of the handy work is happening at night - a clandestine operation of transformation.

He provides no "before and after" photographs - we don't know the lay of the land at all. The closest to such an establishing shot is a photo of a stove top with rusty burners upon which sits a photo of a man's den complete with leather bound books, a brandy bottle and a roaring fireplace. If that photo represents the desired end-point then we have a very long journey clouded in spackle dust ahead.

Nothing But Home has the feel of many wonderful spare books coming from Amsterdam. Clean in design , it was bound in Holland but finely printed in Girard's hometown of Toulouse. It is in a first edition of 500 and also comes in a special edition of 100 copies with a print.

Allowing Flowers by Alec Soth

With the economic crisis and the toll on the housing market we saw and heard hundreds of stories about families facing foreclosure, eviction and/or homelessness. Photographers tried to tell many of those stories through their pictures - to put the human face to the catchphrase of "main street." A noble thing to do, but those stories do little to put people back in their houses or help with the difficultly of such a rapid change to people's lives. Finding a way to give back to your community through your photography is something few have been able to achieve, but Alec Soth has found one.

Alec has teamed up with a Minnesota-based non-profit housing developer called CommonBond Communities with the goal of providing 4000 affordable apartments and townhouses to needy residents of the Upper Midwest. Alec photographed some of the residents of the CommonBond homes and produced a beautiful book called Allowing Flowers that is given away as a gift to people who donate significant sums to the effort.

Soth uses flowers as a motif as they appear in one form or another in each photograph. The metaphor is obvious but appropriate. These homes are grounds to grow and brighten lives.

The few portraits that are taken where we can see some of the interior spaces also seem to be describing lives in transition - they start to ask when a "house" becomes a "home." In one photograph a man at the far left edge watches his sleeping child laying on the floor, in the background, framed photos rest on the floor instead of hanging on the wall. In another, a woman sits at the table in her dining room which is so pristine and tidy, the lack of signs of wear is almost a little sad.

Other photos feature portraits made outside in the communities - a family lays on a perfect patch of green grass in one where Alec is channeling the best qualities of Nicholas Nixon. In another, a woman partly obscured by a tree walks a pure white cat.

I feel odd "reviewing" this book when the real accomplishment is in the funds it will raise for this housing project. The book is available to those who donate $5000.00 to CommonBond (a $25,000 donation gets you a book and a print). Each copy is unique due to the screen printed cover boards and the interior printing is finely done by Trifolio in Verona. The ultra-clean design is by Catherine Mills.

Most of us probably won't have the money to put towards this fine effort. At least not enough to get the book as a gift, but for the few that might - it's not about the book, it's about a home.