A Journey Through Literary America
by Thomas R. Hummel and Photography by Tamra L. Dempsey
Washington Irving
ForeWord Review
The World Is Your Playground by Matt Sutherland Travel, a sense of place, and writers are old friends, and Thomas R. Hummel has written a book that showcases that relationship. In his wonderfully written and packaged project, A Journey Through Literary America (Val de Grace Books, 978-0-9817425-1-9), Hummel chases down the physical landscapes that inspired twenty-six of America’s finest authors, beginning with Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper’s Catskills’ haunts in New York, to the Wyoming known and beloved by Annie Proulx. Because many of these locales are spectacularly picturesque, Hummel’s essays are accompanied by more than 140 photographs by Santa Barbara photographer Tamra L. Dempsey. For example, Ernest Hemingway’s writing drew on the summers of his youth, spent on the lakes and rivers of northern Michigan, and Dempsey helps us to understand why. All of the essays include telling passages from the great authors themselves. Read More »
Shelf-Awareness
Gift Books for the Holidays, Part III This absolutely gorgeous book belongs in every book lover’s library. Beginning with Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper, ending with E. Annie Proulx and Richard Ford, Thomas Hummel examines the relationship between place and an author’s identity, writing about 26 authors, with brief biographies and excerpts of their prose. Tamra Dempsey’s photographs are the perfect enhancement to Hummel’s essays. Willa Cather is evoked with golden prairies and a farmhouse in a sunset-red sky; Langston Hughes with brownstones and Bailey’s Funeral Home in Harlem; Raymond Carver with the site of his childhood home in Yakima (“living on a staple of bitterness”) and the Cornerhouse Restaurant and the marina in Port Angeles. Original: http://news.shelf-awareness.com/mv/a1/801347.html Read More »
Small Press Reviews
I’ll start this review by admitting that I’m not the easiest guy in the world to shop for, and I really do feel bad for all of the people in my life who have to buy me gifts whenever my birthday or Christmas rolls around. The problem, if you can call it that, is that I’m just not into things. I am, however, a book lover, but this also raises a number of issues in the gift-giving arena–the biggest of which is that nobody (including myself half the time) knows which books I own or have read, and so nobody knows which books to give me. And, yes, there are always gift cards to Amazon or Barnes & Noble, but these gifts, heartfelt and sincere though they may be, smack slightly of defeat. They say, “I wanted to get you something, but I didn’t know what, so I’ll let you figure it out for yourself.” I say all of this because I’m sure I’m not the only person out there who’s hard to buy for. And I further suspect that all of these people who are, like me, hard to buy for have people who love them and who want [...] Read More »
Elaine Kendall
Elegantly illustrated and written from a unique historical perspective, A Journey Through Literary America reacquaints the reader with the writers who established and continued our literary tradition. Beginning with Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper, the meticulously chosen photographs not only capture the natural wonders that have dazzled and influenced American writers for three centuries but also offer insight into the settings in which they lived and wrote. A beautiful and necessary book. — Elaine Kendall An author, journalist and playwright, Elaine Kendall has written four books of social history: The Upper Hand, an irreverent account of changing male/female roles; The Happy Mediocrity, an examination of American choices in architecture, food, clothing, manners and mores as they have developed over the centuries; Peculiar Institutions, an informal account of the development of women’s education from pre-revolutionary times to the present, and Seeing Europe Again: Confessions of a First World Traveler; a light-hearted comparison of European and American cultural attitudes. Her articles about art, theater, travel and various aspects of the changing American scene have appeared in Harpers, The New York Times Magazine, Performing Arts, Horizon, American Heritage, Vogue, The Dramatist, Playbill, and many other national magazines. From 1974 to 1997, she [...] Read More »
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