A meticulously crafted description of a writing teacher’s apprenticeship in bookbinding and conservation with an internationally known master of the field. Wilcox tells her story by referring to the copious notes she compiled while serving as the first female apprentice to William Anthony, the founder of the Center for the Book at the University of Iowa. She found that writing down her experiences was the best way to “hold onto the terrors and successes of learning a handcraft,” and it’s her preservation of the freshness of her encounter with a new craft that makes this book compelling reading for those who may not share an interest in its rather narrowly focused subject matter. She draws readers into the world of book arts by immersing us totally in its richly descriptive technical jargon: Leather bindings have red rot (a condition that causes them to crumble at the slightest touch), pages are foxed (spotted with rust from bits of iron), books are rebound in alum-tawed pigskin. She describes restoration processes, such as chemical washing, mending torn pages, resizing, and sewing bindings, with such detail and precision that one is left with the impression that he or she is actually learning the craft rather than merely reading about another’s experience. Her relationship with Anthony (who died of cancer before the end of the five-year apprenticeship program) is an integral part of her story, and she chronicles his patient advice and support as he guides her through her first restoration, teaches her to sew her first Coptic stitch across a binding spine, helps her to manufacture her own tools, and advises her on professional matters, such as estimating private restoration jobs. The rarity of such intense personal mentoring relationships in today’s economic climate renders Wilcox’s experience both a nostalgic throwback to an earlier era and a potential model for recuperating current pedagogical practices. Book lovers will love this book. (Book—of-the-Month Club alternate selection)
Pub Date: June 30, 1999
ISBN: 0-89823-188-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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