Shortly after receiving the 1988 copy of Robert Wearing's The Essential Woodworker, reviewed here, the copy of the Lost Arts Press 2010 edition which I had ordered through Shop Woodworking arrived at my doorstep. In the true spirit of reviewership everywhere, I restrained myself from even a glance through, concentrating instead on the original book.
I'm a digester when it comes to books. It takes me a few days to sort out what I've read, what I think of what I've read and what I might want to or not want to write about what I've been thinking about. This is important stuff! How many run-on sentences should I come up with? Are there new puns to be had? Old movies to refer to or obscure authors to quote in the vain hopes of appearing one of the intelligentsia Boston is so famous for? S'truth - I don't live in Cambridge, so that really doesn't count for me. Wrong end of the Charles River, ya see. Up this way it's sort of a small little brook you can almost jump across at spots or at the very least, toss a small rock from one bank to the other.
Sufficient time has passed since reading and discussing Wearing's book. I picked up the Lost Art's Press edition and, quite honestly, read it with an open mind as I really liked the original. After all, the text and illustrations were the same as I had expected them to be.
This review, therefore, will focus on book structure, planning and execution with a decidedly constructive flavor. This review is from a background as both a retired librarian and long time bookman. In no particular order:
- Binding: The cover art, stamped silver foil on linen, was 1/4" off center to the outside right. There was a 1/8" glue spot on the front cover. These points may sound minor to the reader, but from the perspective of a commercial buyer, this tells me the bindery quality control was lax.
- Binding: A silver foil stamped linen cover may sound expensive but to a commercial buyer or collections librarian, this is one of many forms of standard full cloth, case bound, sewn book covers available except that it is lacking the dust jacket. Why not add a dust jacket the consumer can either keep or discard? Without the dust jacket, the foil stamping will wear off with shelf use. The added cost is minimal.
- The title and data pages fail to follow the basic forms of book structure. While there is of course no "law" requiring such a structure, library and commercial catalogers refer to the data pages for the information they need when it comes to creating the data to be entered in their electronic catalogs. Lacking a recognizable structure is a sign of an amateur or vanity press production. Following the simple guidelines for book title and data layout is a politeness to the book community and is easily accomplished.
- Statement of Edition: The publisher did not provide a preface clarifying the nature of this new edition. The reader as well as any buyer should be made aware of changes in text, images, pagination, size, etc. as authorized by the original author or instituted by the publisher and/or editor.
- Photographs: The captions for each photograph fail to follow the format set by the captions for the line illustrations. Sometimes a period is used to end a word set, sometimes not. Each term "Photo 2" should have period following the number as is the case with all illustration numbers. Em dashes are used in some instances and not in others. The em dash should not be used in a caption.
- Photographs: The photographs of the original book were, I felt, more successfully illustrative of the given topics. Some of the replacement photographs and captions felt rushed and forced, as if the publishers felt they had to put something in that spot because they were there originally. There are photos unreferenced in the text, indicative of problems in planning and editing.
- Book Size: The original is 7.25x9.75, 159 pages. It's a UK book, thus the seemingly odd size to US eyes. Lost Arts Press re-sized their edition to 6x9. The only reason I can see for this change was to keep the book under the price jump incurred if they had moved to 7x10 or larger. By moving to 6x9, massive reformatting was forced upon the content, very much to the detriment of the flow of the book. While at times the work flow does succeed, at other times I can feel the need of the editors to make the text and images fit the reduced size. I would truly have wished the publisher had kept with a US 7x10 or even 8.5x11, giving ample room for larger photographs and improved text / illustration arrangements.
Lost Arts Press has many titles in the works and, in my estimation, a great future ahead of it. Writing as one close to both the library and book worlds, I urge they review what they want to achieve in terms of the production quality of their books and meet if not surpass that which other independent book publishers are producing.
Till next, Gary
