Many years ago, I read 'The Little Engine Than Could'.  It was no Tom
Clancy novel, and quite frankly, it sucked.

How's that for a book review?

It would be hard for me to subjectively do a RR book review when most of
the books in my collection are just that, (motive power) reviews.

Anybody read Jim Boyd's Illinois Central Monday Morning Rails, Ted Benson's
Echoes Down The Canyon or Kenneth Jessen's Railroads Of Northern Colorado? 
All three are different types of actual books, although the first two are
heavily illustrated.  All three are great books for different reasons.  Jim
Boyd wrote an interesting little book around a motive power format, Ted
Benson produced a beautifully narrated black and white historical art form
and Kenneth Jessen's book didn't need any pictures in it to emerse you and
transport you back to the dawn of western railroading, but the historical
shots of railroad barons and the pictorial accounts of hardships and
construction across the wild west were a nice touch.

I'm not being specific enough and I'm not writing bad 'reviews' you say? 
This is because everyone will interpret the content of a literary work
differently.  Pictorials are easier to review.  Just like Playboy is easier
to read than Psychology Today.

I would like to hear some decent (quality) reviews or recent RR books, but
I am not sure that this is possible.  Especially when we are the crowd
sending the slides in for these projects.  Everyone surely would reach a
different opinion of the same book just by favoring either illustrations,
maps and historical accounts or information in the form of text.  I'm sure
even Sischol and Eibert would just like to beat the hell out of each other
some days.

Reviews I'm no good at, but I'll give you my opinion on something.  If you
yank the pictures out of a Morning Sun Books or a Four Ways West
Publications book, you don't have much of a 'book' left.

Dave Cohen
Photographer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

--> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects

X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
Content-Length: 1550


Reply via email to