A Journey Through Literary America :: Blog

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.

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

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 to buy them something out of the ordinary whenever gift-giving season rolls around. But they (the people who love the people who are hard to buy for) can never find the right gift and will–at the last moment, when all hope is lost–always settle for giving yet another gift card each holiday season even though they’d much prefer to buy a gift from the heart that say, “Hey! I care about you, and I know you well enough to get you this wonderful gift!” To put it bluntly, I’m saying all of this because I know how hard it is to shop for book lovers. But no more–for A Journey Through Literary America by Thomas R. Hummel and Tamra L. Dempsey is, I daresay, the perfect gift for book lovers.

First, the book is, objectively speaking, aesthetically beautiful. Illustrated with page after glossy page of vibrant photographs, it explores the settings that inspired many of America’s most loved authors–from Washington Irving’s Castkills to Robinson Jeffers’ Big Sur and back to Toni Morrison’s Lorain, Ohio (and many, many other places in between). Yet the book is more than just a collection of pretty (or, more accurately, stunning) pictures. And it’s even more than just an examination of the specific places that had a profound effect on the literary output of certain authors. Rather, it’s a meditation on relationship between place and author, or, even more broadly, upon place and self, place and identity. This is no small feat, for it takes the authors we admire in the abstract and places them squarely in the real world. Seeing their homes, seeing their towns, seeing the streets they walked and the rolling vistas that inspired them makes the 26 authors examined in A Journey all the more real to me, all the more human.

Needless to say, this volume is both a treat and treasure. Informative as it is beautiful, it will make a wonderful addition to any library. And, if you’re looking for the perfect gift for the book lover in your life, look no further than A Journey Through Literary America.

Original: http://smallpressreviews.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/a-journey-through-literary-america/

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 was a weekly book columnist for The Los Angeles Times. Elaine Kendall has also written and collaborated on libretti and lyrics for musical plays produced in New York, California, Hawaii and Connecticut. An American Cantata is an adaptation of the late John Sanford’s chronicle of American women, and is available from Samuel French, Inc. The Would-be Diva is a musical comedy based upon the extraordinary life of the Polish-born beauty Ganna Walska. Isadora is a musical drama about Isadora Duncan, and Kendall’s 2003 show is Cole & Will: Together Again, a unique revue melding Cole Porter’s memorable lyrics to appropriate moments from 15 Shakespearean dramas and comedies.

Elaine Kendall is a member of The Authors Guild, The Dramatists Guild, and ASCAP.

Reference quoted from: http://members.authorsguild.net/ekendall/