A novel from my teenage years. Cat Man is a novel of running off to join the circus. The protagonist finds work caring for the cats: lions and tigers. He becomes more obsessed with the great cats with each chapter. But it is not the protagonist’s disastrous fixation that makes the book, it is the sumptuous detail in the operation of a mid 20th century circus.…
I’ve always admired Jacob Holdt’s achievement in this book. With the most curious of cameras he made a photographic journey through America, and always took the time to visit, eat with (and for some reason usually sleep with) the poorest people he met. A really beautiful book.…
This book was introduced to my childhood home by my uncle Jerry (who lived in the Sausalito hippy houseboat community) and it was read by my parents and myself and my siblings at various times. We all used to quote its slogan “Allah’s winds are free, therefore his faithful use them”. It is a really beautiful book on so many levels: the exquisite photography by the author, the ethnographic details of beduin society, and most of all the accounts of the working of an wooden arab sailing cargo vessel, a dhow.…
This is one of the most extraordinary travelogues I’ve ever read. It makes me wonder if in Schneebaum’s mind homosexuality and cannibalism are somehow linked?
Schneebaum went from the art scene in Manhattan, to the Amazon rainforest, on a Guggenheim fellowship. He was on a quest to find the most primitive tribe possible.…
A very lovely project by Walker Evans as a young man. Much of the credit for this excellent monograph goes to curator Gilles Mora: Mora gives us full frame versions of Evans’ images. Evans typically cropped his photos, usually to their detriment.
Evans traveled to Cuba at an interesting time: just before the communist revolution. He was assigned to illustrate a socialist critique of Cuba’s Machado regime.…
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