A quirky book that is expertly written and impressively edifying.
Foley provides an instructional manual for building guitars and endeavors to establish guitar production as a scientific discipline in this nonfiction work.
The author doesn’t just want to impart the knowledge necessary to construct a well-playing guitar from scratch; Foley aims at a far grander ambition, the founding of “luthiery” as an independent branch of science. “What if someone who wanted to learn to service and build guitars could go to a university and study the physics, history, and technique of this craft and earn an accredited degree in this field? Wouldn’t that be fun!” The entire book is infused with this coupling of unabashed enthusiasm and technical aspiration. The author begins with an introduction to the “fundamental features of wave motion” as it applies to guitar playing, in particular string vibration and tone production. This attention to the scientific workings of the guitar informs the whole of Foley’s effort, which includes excerpts from various patent ideas for the invention of a new electric guitar pickup. Readers will also learn the history of the guitar, from its ancient beginnings as a stringed bow up to the period in which electric guitars were produced in the 20th century. The author does not neglect the basics—he presents an overview (for the novice) of the guitar’s most elemental components, but also covers some exceedingly esoteric topics like the “gravitational force on the string in the nut slot.” There is certainly some unnecessary meandering on Foley’s part—sections detailing a brief history of electricity and Democritus’ interpretation of the atom are surely digressions. However, these detours can be pardoned given the context of the author’s overriding objective, which is to create a new field of study, one that draws from all the relevant branches of science. This book likely won’t appeal to a general audience, but it will certainly be a treat for those few for whom it is intended: guitar enthusiasts who aspire to craft their own instruments and are deeply obsessed by the science of the guitar.
A quirky book that is expertly written and impressively edifying.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9798350922363
Page Count: 156
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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