OVERSIZE BOOKS

Ohio Libraries, Fall 2004 by Switzer, James

Several divisions of our main library shelve oversize books together. I learned years ago that the big, expensive art and photography books were thus concentrated for easy browsing, but it has been a long time since I thus browsed. The other day I wandered around to see what I could find in the way of oversize books that I could check out. It didn't take long to collect a stack heavy enough to need a book cart to haul them to circulation and out to my car.

These things aren't called coffee table books for nothing. I tend to read in bed, but not these monsters. I even had trouble balancing some of them on my lap in an armchair. The best place to read them is at the dining room table, which means they don't lend themselves to a quick look in passing.

I have enjoyed William Wegman's photographs of his weimeraners for years. William Wegman: Polaroid is a delightful collection of those images, all taken with a large format (20"×24") Polaroid camera. How or why his dogs put up with his shenanigans is beyond me, but his photographs are entrancing.

I read that Rem Koolhaas had designed the new Seattle library and that he had written Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan in 1978.1 found it interesting and guirky, and I learned a good deal about Coney Island and Radio City Music Hall, I hope Seattle likes its guirky new library.

A Vanished World is a collection of photographs by Roman Vishniac of Jews in the Warsaw and other ghettos in the late 1930s. The pictures aren't horrific-no starving prisoners or naked bodies stacked like cordwood. They are mostly of people trying to live normal lives in what was a horrific time. I smiled at the girl looking innocently into the distance as she gets a ticket from an officiouslooking policeman for not having a bicycle license. But I finally closed the book with tears in my eyes because I knew why, and how, this world vanished.

Lines of Country: An Atlas of Railway and Waterway History in Canada sounded interesting in an offbeat kind of way. The title ran completely across the horizontal cover above a panoramic photo of an old train station. But the inside of the book was disappointing. Pages were full of small photos and up to six columns of tiny type. The text was a collection of data that would have been better expressed in charts and spreadsheets. I felt tricked by the large format; it was easy to put Lines of Country down.

Turkey: Ancient Miniatures had just the opposite effect. I have marveled at the collections of illuminated manuscripts in the Cleveland art museum and others, but it is nearly impossible to see the detail of a small illustration behind glass in a display cabinet. Enlarging them, one to a folio page, makes each brush or pen stroke visible. No, it's not the original, and the colors aren't pure gold and ground precious stones, but it adds to the experience when I go back to the museum.

My wife and I visited Versailles a couple of years ago and were duly impressed. Living in a Dream: Great Residences of the World enhances that impression. The combination of large-scale cutaway drawings and photographs of interior details makes sense of the complexity of places like the Doge's Palace and the Alhambra and Neuschwanstein Castle. It brought back detailed memories of some places we've visited: Versailles, Windsor Castle, and San Simeon. And it enhances my understanding of places I know mostly because of the National Geographic: the Potola in Tibet; the Red Fort in Agra, India; and Katsura in Kyoto, Japan. These may be dream residences for some, but to me they're more like New York City, a nice place to visit, but....

It seems that I inadvertently picked up a stack of books all dealing, in one way or another, with vanished worlds. Masterpieces of Woman's Costume of the 18th and 19th Centuries made me glad I am not a woman of the 18th or 19th century, though the dresses are elegant. By the way, did you know that Parisiennes of the early Empire wore false breasts made of papiermache and tied on with linen tapes? Probably no more bizarre than the Wonder Bra, but news to me.

Okay, now all you librarians get to laugh at the innocent trustee. I walked into the children's room and asked, "Do you have any big books?" They're HUGE and we have hundreds. I brought home Jake Baked the Cake, Over the River and Through the Woods, and Bugs. They're too big for a single child on one's lap but perfect for groups, of course. However the outsize illustration of the Periodical Cicada probably seems just about life size to the folks they sang to last summer.

I carted my oversize stack of oversize books back to the library, but I've caught a big book bug. The other day I brought home Complete Banjo Repair and I just picked up The Art of Maurice Sendak from the recent books shelf. I'll try to hold myself to one or two at a time, though.

BY JAMES SWITZER TRUSTEE, AKRON-SUMMIT COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY

James Switzer is a Trustee for the AkronSummit County Public Library. He can be reached at (330) 864-7762 or switzer@uakron.edu.