Jim Heynen

5 stars for the photographs and book design. Less enthusiastic about the accompanying text, which was written as a series of imaginative vignettes by a noted creative writer: an uneven-- and in places condescending --mixture of poetry, meditations, history, and fictional interpolations. Personally, while I found some of these vignettes did add to the photographs they are intended to complement, the overall effect, for me at least, was to detract from the excellent photographs, which could easily stand on their own, requiring at most some brief explanatory captions here-and-there. Where an explanatory note would actually shed some useful light on the photographs--what is a work train? what and where is Chanute Field--the annotator is silent, or else writing about what was going on everywhere else in the country--Japanese internment, the Alien Registration Act, etc.… (mais)

As the authors state "there probably are still more books about very old cars, houses, paintings and even dishes than about very old people." To redress this oversight they interviewed and photographed 100 centenarians currently living in North America, although many were born overseas. The brief essays are well written, convey the essence of the interviewee's life, and contain many quotations from them. The portrait photography is excellent. The humor, mental agility, independence, opinions, and talents of these elders is surprising considering that most suffer from various infirmities of old age. A celebration of life and endurance. Recommended.
- Sondra Brunhumer, Western Michigan Univ. Libs., Kalamazoo… (mais)