Vanishing America: The End of Main Street Diners, Drive-Ins, Donut Shops, and Other Everyday Monuments
by Michael Eastman, William H. Gass
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Book Summary Information
Author: Michael Eastman, William H. GassIntroduction: Douglas Brinkley
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-29
ISBN: 0847830403
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: Rizzoli
Book Reviews of Vanishing America: The End of Main Street Diners, Drive-Ins, Donut Shops, and Other Everyday Monuments
Book Review: A Different Kind of Beauty
Summary: 4 Stars
This book is beautiful, but not in the traditional sense. It shows well-loved and decaying mainstays of small towns all across the U.S. Not so much the "Route 66" kitchy America, but the regular, everyday sights and signs that we seldom focus on but are there, nonetheless. The photographer took pictures of what was on the other side of the street, and it is poignant and a little sad to see some of that stuff in such a state of decline. I'm glad I purchased the book and I love to remember the small town I grew up in as I flip through its pages.
Summary of Vanishing America: The End of Main Street Diners, Drive-Ins, Donut Shops, and Other Everyday Monuments
Think of the quirky buildings you pass every day but whose quiet beauty you take for granted-the moviehouses, juke joints, soda fountains, barbershops, roadside diners, and storefront churches. You don't miss them until they're gone. As suburban sprawl and strip malls conquer the country, these vestiges of a lost way of life are falling under the wrecking ball. Here the photographer Michael Eastman has made the ultimate road trip, crisscrossing the nation dozens of times, to capture these buildings on film before they vanish. These dreamy images call us to question what we choose to let go in the wake of contemporary life, with a cool melancholy that evokes the work of Edward Hopper, Jack Kerouac, and William Eggleston. There is a wry sense of humor here as well. The book delights in the idiosyncracies of America's vernacular styles, ranging from Depression Deco to New England clapboard in random juxtapositions that accrue over time in a town's landscape. Countless visual puns arise among the book's many detailed images of signs and statuettes. Vanishing America catalogues great everyday American architecture and design. But it also offers a provocative portrait of the silent emptiness that has descended upon vanishing small communities everywhere.Architectural Books
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