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If youre a media organization looking for more information, click here on your book of choice for press releases, talking points, and other press materials. Danny Wilcox Frazier's Driftless Kathy Davis's The Making of Our Bodies, Ourselves Timothy Stoltzfus Jost's Health Care at Risk Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions Harnessing Farms and Forests in the Low-Carbon Economy Walt Whitman's Franklin Evans, or The Inebriate Swanee Hunt’s Half-Life of a Zealot Rafael Campo’s The Enemy Ian Condry’s Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Politics of Cultural Globalization Ted Gioia’s Work Songs and Healing Songs Nancy Goodwin’s Montrose: Life in a Garden
For a complete description, recent praise and reviews, author affiliation, and bibliographic information for one of the titles listed above, simply visit that titles page by using the search function. Note: Inquiries from the media regarding books should be emailed to bpublicity@dukeupress.edu. Publications and media organizations interested in review copies should follow the instructions provided on our "request review copies" page.
Duke
University Press Publishes The new winner of biennial Center for Documentary Studies/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography, Danny Wilcox Frazier's Driftless: Photographs from Iowa (November 8, 2007), is a fitting follow-up to 2003's much-heralded On Fire by Larry Schwarm and 2005's compelling The Weather and a Place to Live by Steve Smith. The 2007 competition was judged by Robert Frank, one of America's preeminent photographers. In choosing Frazier's poetic and dark photographs of Iowa, he hearkens back to his own most famous work, The Americans. In Driftless, Danny Wilcox Frazier's dramatic black-and-white photographs portray a changing Midwest of vanishing towns and transformed landscapes. As rural economies fail, people, resources, and services are migrating to the coasts and cities, as though the heart of America were being emptied. Frazier's arresting photographs take us into Iowa's abandoned places and illuminate the lives of those people who stay behind and continue to live there: young people at leisure, fishermen on the Mississippi, veterans on Memorial Day, Amish women playing cards, as well as more recent arrivals: Lubavitcher Hasidic Jews at prayer, Latinos at work in the fields. Frazier's camera finds these newcomers while it also captures activities that seemingly have gone on forever: harvesting and hunting, celebrating and socializing, praying and surviving. This collection
of photographs is a portrait of contemporary rural Iowa, but it is also
more that that. It shows what is happening in many rural and out-of-the-way
communities all over the United States, where people find ways to get
by in the wake of closing factories and the demise of family farms. Taken
by a true insider who has lived in Iowa his entire life, Frazier's photographs
are rich in emotion and give expression to the hopes and desires of the
people who remain, whose needs and wants are complicated by the economic
realities remaking rural America. Upcoming
Events featuring Talk and Book Signing Opening Reception
and Book Signing # # # # A look at the classic women's health text and how it has become a worldwide feminist success story! The Making
of Our Bodies, Ourselves “Feminism travels, and Our Bodies, Ourselves is today the most transnational effort of women’s health movements. In this theoretically sophisticated book that I have yearned for, Kathy Davis offers history and an assessment of Our Bodies, Ourselves as a multi-sited epistemological project, and she brilliantly reveals quite hopeful implications for transnational feminist theory. A politically grounded analysis of how western feminism can become ‘de-centered’ through practice. Brava!”—Adele E. Clarke, coeditor of Revisioning Women, Health, and Healing: Feminist, Cultural, and Technoscience Perspectives The book Our Bodies, Ourselves is a feminist success story. Selling more than four million copies since its debut in 1970, it has challenged medical dogmas about women’s bodies and sexuality, shaped health care policies, energized the reproductive rights movement, and stimulated medical research on women’s health. The book has influenced how generations of U.S. women feel about their bodies and health. Our Bodies, Ourselves has also had a whole life outside the United States. It has been taken up, translated, and adapted by women across the globe, inspiring more than thirty foreign language editions. In The Making of Our Bodies, Ourselves, Kathy Davis tells the story of the travels of this remarkable book. Based on interviews with members of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, the group of women who created Our Bodies, Ourselves, as well as responses to the book from readers, and discussions with translators from Latin America, Egypt, Thailand, China, Eastern Europe, Francophone Africa, and many other countries and regions, Davis shows how Our Bodies, Ourselves became so much more than just a popular manual on women’s health. Kathy Davis is a Senior Researcher at the Research Institute of History and Culture at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Her books include The Handbook of Gender and Women’s Studies (coedited with Mary Evans and Judith Lorber), Dubious Equalities and Embodied Differences: Cultural Studies on Cosmetic Surgery, and Embodied Practices: Feminist Perspectives on the Body. Kathy
Davis is available to answer these and other questions:
Everyone agrees the U.S. health care system is broken. While some policy makers (and a certain well-known documentary filmmaker) are talking about government-paid universal care, more conservative thinkers often propose consumer-driven health care (CDHC) as a solution to runaway costs. The idea behind CDHC is simple: consumers should be encouraged to save for medical care with health savings accounts, rely on these accounts to cover routine medical expenses, and turn to insurance only to cover catastrophic medical events. Advocates of consumer-driven health care believe that if consumers are spending their own money on medical care, they will purchase only services with real value to them. In Health Care at Risk Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, a leading expert in health law who teaches at the Washington and Lee University School of Law, weighs in on consumer-driven health care (CDHC). Jost contends that supporters of CDHC rely on oversimplified ideas about health care, health care systems, economics, and human nature. In this concise, straightforward analysis, Jost challenges the historical and theoretical assumptions on which the consumer-driven health care movement is based and reexamines the empirical evidence that it claims as support. He traces the histories of both private health insurance in the United States and the CDHC movement. The idea animating the drive for consumer-driven health care is that the fundamental problem with the American health care system is what economists call "moral hazard," the risk that consumers overuse services for which they do not bear the cost. Jost reveals moral hazard as an inadequate explanation of the complex problems plaguing the American health care system, and he points to troubling legal and ethical issues raised by CDHC. He describes how other countries have achieved universal access to high-quality health care at lower cost, without relying extensively on cost sharing, and he concludes with a proposal for how the United States might do the same, incorporating aspects of CDHC while recognizing its limitations. Other health care experts are praising Jost's new book. Theodore R. Marmor, author of Fads, Fallacies, and Foolishness in Medical Care Management and Policy says, "Health Care at Risk is the first intelligent and intelligible discussion of a new fad in American health policy, the so-called 'consumer-directed' movement. This topic is quite important, and Timothy Stoltzfus Jost knows what he is talking about." And Sara Rosenbaum, Chair of the Department of Health Policy at George Washington University, says, "Timothy Stoltzfus Jost's book is essential reading for anyone concerned about the future of the American health care system." Anyone interested in fixing our damaged health care system should take a look at Health Care at Risk. Timothy Stoltzfus Jost is available for interviews. Timothy Stoltzfus
Jost is available to answer these and other questions: • How could anything possibly be wrong with empowering health care consumers? Who might be hurt by consumer-driven health plans? • What did the Medicare prescription drug legislation do for consumer-driven health care? • What are health savings accounts and how do they work? Whom do they benefit? What are high deductible health plans, and how do they differ from conventional health insurance? • Why does the consumer-driven movement criticize tax subsidies for employee health benefits? • What is the “accidental health care system,” and was it really an accident? • Do we have any evidence as to how consumer-driven health care is working out in the United States? Do we know how it has worked in other countries that have tried it? • How does health care in the United States compare with than in other countries? How do other countries assure access to health care while controlling costs? • How does consumer-driven health care affect relationships between patients and professionals? How will it affect the legal obligations of doctors? • How should we fix the things that are wrong with our American health care system? # # # #
First Comprehensive Guide to Carbon Sequestration Now Available Duke University Press and The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions Publish Harnessing Farms and Forests in the Low-Carbon Economy Duke University Press and the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University are pleased to announce the publication of the first comprehensive guide to help farmers and foresters turn their land’s carbon-storing properties into a tradable commodity, and to provide guidance for those who would verify those practices as carbon “offsets.” Harnessing Farms and Forests in the Low-Carbon Economy: How to Create, Measure, and Verify Greenhouse Gas Offsets contains comprehensive information about land management practices best suited for sequestering, or storing, carbon dioxide emissions in soils and forests. It details how landowners can convert this storage capacity into revenue-generating greenhouse gas emissions “offsets,” that can be sold, via carbon markets, by businesses or energy users unable to reduce emissions on their own. Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions developed the guide in collaboration with the nonprofit advocacy group Environmental Defense, and engaged scientists from Texas A&M, Colorado State, Rice, Princeton, Kansas State and Brown universities, as well as other experts. Excerpts of the guide and additional materials are available online. The guide explains how farmers and foresters can convert their land’s carbon dioxide storage capacity and reduce emissions of potent greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide into revenue-generating “offsets” that can be bought and sold in future carbon markets. Lawmakers at the state and federal levels are paying increased attention to the role of these offsets as legislation to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions is being developed. A number of agricultural groups are realizing the potential for new revenue streams through greenhouse gas-sequestering alterations to farming practice, such as no till farming where soils are not turned up after every season, and manure management practices that capture methane and utilize it as an energy source. "This is a comprehensive roadmap that paves the way for agriculture as a verifiable, measurable carbon sink," said Dick Wittman, a member of the Agricultural Carbon Market Working Group and the former president of the Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Association. "Recent
studies by Kansas State University and others have indicated that carbon
could be an $8 billion market for agriculture,” Wittman said. “This
document proves that specific agricultural conservation tillage practices
are a legitimate method to store carbon. Should policymakers embark on
a cap and trade Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense, said, “A comprehensive cap on carbon will guarantee reductions in global warming pollution while stimulating new technologies. Designed well, it will move people to sequester carbon in the ground and in forests. This important book shows how carbon offsets on farms and forests can contribute if they are measurable and verifiable. The book is a badly needed how-to manual for farmers and foresters showing them how to create, measure, and verify their offset reductions. It also will help assure the public and policymakers that offset reductions are real when they meet rigorous standards." The guide is divided into three sections. The first provides an overview for legislators, landowners, and those unfamiliar with offset markets but interested in learning about them. The second provides a more detailed but nontechnical exposition of the offset process for project developers, investors and purchasers of offsets. Farmers and other land managers will find, in the third section of thirteen detailed appendices at the end of the volume, the technical information detailing exact practices for sequestering, and measuring, carbon in soils and forests. Some land managers in agriculture and forestry are building demonstration projects that apply the recommendations in the guide. In Idaho, reforestation projects will return previously cultivated lands to pine forests, with the resulting offsets aggregated by a Native American tribe. In New York, a group of small landowners and dairies is producing offsets by combining reforestation, no-till farming, methane capture from manure, buffer zones, and cover crops. “We know land-use practices can give us more options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next 20 to 30 years, and flexibility for companies adjusting to a U.S. carbon cap once it is enacted,” said Nicholas Institute Director Tim Profeta. “But farmers and foresters have needed specific guidance, and lawmakers need to know that the reductions can be verified. This book gives us that information and assurance.” The Nicholas Institute is a nonpartisan academic institution established in 2005 to bridge the gap between academic research and active environmental policymaking, and to serve as an honest broker in the policymaking process. Environmental Defense is a leading national nonprofit organization that links science, economics, law and innovative private-sector partnerships to create breakthrough solutions to the most serious environmental problems. # # # #
Walt Whitman's Novel Available in Print Duke University Press Publishes Franklin Evans, or The Inebriate First Time Whitman Novel is Available in over 40 Years Not many people know that Walt Whitman—arguably the preeminent American poet of the nineteenth century-began his literary career as a novelist. Franklin Evans, or The Inebriate: A Tale of the Times, was his first and only novel. The novel was published in 1842, during a period of widespread temperance activity, in the New World, a New York weekly. It has been out of print since 1967, and has not been widely available since its original publication. The novel tells the rags-to-riches story of Franklin Evans, an innocent young man from the Long Island countryside who seeks his fortune in New York City. Corrupted by music halls, theaters, and above all taverns, he gradually becomes a drunkard. Until the very end of the tale, Evans's efforts to abstain fail, and each time he resumes drinking, another series of misadventures ensues. Along the way, Evans encounters a world of rapidly changing mores and conventions, brought about by slavery, investment capital, urban mass culture, and fervent reform. Although Evans finally signs a temperance pledge, his sobriety remains haunted by the often contradictory and unsettling changes in antebellum American culture. Later in his life, Whitman disavowed Franklin Evans, claiming he completed it in a mere three days and that he composed parts of the novel in the reading room of Tammany Hall, inspired by, depending on his story, either gin cocktails or by a bottle of port. He eventually called Franklin Evans "damned rot-rot of the worst sort." Critical attention at the time was mostly dismissive, and in no way heralded the rising of a great talent. Van Wyck Brooks claimed the novel "abounded in every known cliché of the moral-mongers" with "scarcely a line or a thought that suggested in any way an original mind." Alexander Cowie found the novel's structure "wobbly at best," and Emory Holloway said that it "abound[s] in sentimental piety." Despite this, Franklin Evans sold twenty thousand copies, the most of any of Whitman's works during his lifetime. Why then, should the novel be published now? The editors of this edition, Christopher Castiglia and Glenn Hendler, provide a substantial introduction that locates Franklin Evans in relation to Whitman's life and career, mid-nineteenth-century American print culture, and many of the developments and institutions the novel depicts, including urbanization, immigration, slavery, the temperance movement, and new understandings of class, race, gender, and sexuality. This edition includes three very short temperance stories Whitman published at about the same time as he did Franklin Evans, the surviving fragment of what appears to be another unfinished temperance novel by Whitman, and a temperance speech by Abraham Lincoln from the same year Franklin Evans was published. This new edition of Franklin Evans will be welcomed by students, scholars, and Whitman fans for its contribution to our understanding of the great author and his times. # # # #
Half-Life
of a Zealot About Swanee Hunt Swanee Hunt is the director of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. An internationally recognized expert on foreign affairs and diplomacy, Hunt is known for her trailblazing work to increase the participation and inclusion of women in peace processes around the world. She is also president of Hunt Alternatives Fund, a private foundation committed to advancing social change at local, national, and global levels. From 1993 to 1997, Hunt served as ambassador to Austria. During her tenure she hosted negotiations and several international symposia to focus efforts on securing the peace in the neighboring Balkan states. Ambassador
Hunt’s work in Europe inspired the creation of The
Initiative for Inclusive Security (including the Women
Waging Peace Network), an initiative she incubated at the Kennedy
School, which advocates for the full participation of all stakeholders,
especially women, in formal and informal peace processes. Hunt teaches
“Inclusive Security” at the Kennedy School, exploring why
women are systematically excluded from peace processes and the policy
steps needed to rectify the problem. She also teaches “The Choreography
of Social Movements” at Harvard College. Swanee Hunt is available to answer these and other questions • What do you mean by Half-Life of a Zealot? • You come from a family with a legendary fortune. How has that affected your life? • Your family was very conservative, but as an adult your path diverged from theirs and you now embrace progressive causes. What factors contributed to that transition? • How did your appointment as ambassador to Austria come about? • How did the work in Austria lead to your work with women internationally? How does this relate to your work as director of the Women and Public Policy Program at the Kennedy School? • Your work in Vienna must have been especially challenging due to your being an unusually young ambassador, with children at home. How did you manage this balance then, and also in general over the years? • Philanthropy has been in the news a great deal lately. What do you think of the Warren Buffet gift to the Gates Foundation, and what is your own approach to philanthropy? • How do your policy work, your political work, your public service, and your philanthropy interrelate? • What would the world look like if women were proportionately represented in positions of power? • How do you believe the government and charities should interact? How will the rise of megaphilanthropies like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation change the relationship between them? # # # #
In his fifth collection
of poetry, the award-winning writer and physician Rafael Campo considers
what it means to be the enemy in America today. Using the empathetic medium
of a poetry grounded in the sentient physical body we all share, he writes
of a country endlessly at war—not only against so-called evildoers
abroad but also with its own troubled conscience. Yet whether he is addressing
the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the battle against the AIDS pandemic, or the
“culture wars” surrounding the issues of feminism and gay
marriage, Campo’s compelling poems affirm the notion that from even
the most bitter of conflicts arises hope. That hope—expressed here
in the Cuban exile’s dream of someday returning to his homeland,
in a dying IV drug user’s wish for humane medical treatment, in
a downcast housewife’s desire to express herself meaningfully through
art—is that somehow we can be better than ourselves. Through a kaleidoscopic
lens of poetic forms, Campo reveals this greatest of human aspirations
as the one sustaining us all. Rafael Campo is available to answer these and other questions: • Doctors are supposed to be dispassionate scientists. Why would a doctor write poetry? • These days, with all the dehumanizing changes in medicine, from the constraints of managed care to the imperatives of new technologies, how does a doctor make use of poetry? • Another challenge for many doctors these days is having to deal with an increasingly multicultural patient population, as America itself becomes more diverse. Might poetry have relevance in responding to these changes? • Recent scientific studies that suggest creative self-expression (specifically writing) can help patients who are living with chronic diseases have generated much media attention. Do you ever use poetry directly with your patients? Do you think poetry can be healing? Is medicine is still an art? • Do you think that poetry has a significant role in the training of aspiring physicians? Can empathy for human suffering really be taught? • What do other physicians think of your identity as a nationally recognized poet who is sometimes critical of medicine and who writes about what some might view as controversial subject matter? • What do your patients think of your poetry? • Some have pronounced poetry an elitist, dying art form in America, while “spoken word” poetry is making headlines these days along with hip-hop artists who might claim to be poets, and commercially successful ones at that. What do you think is true about American poetry’s “health” and viability? What is your response to the poetry slams, “rap poetry,” and the like? • Your
poetry frequently alludes to your clinical work with people living with
AIDS, who are oftentimes stigmatized and marginalized in American culture.
Why do you find it so compelling to write about them? Some have said AIDS
is “old news,” with the advent of new more effective treatments.
What is your view of the AIDS epidemic? Do you feel yourself implicated
in the AIDS community not just as a doctor, but as a poet? • You studied poetry at Boston University with U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky and Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott. What was that experience like? How did you integrate your rigorous medical studies with your study of the craft of poetry? • Your own poetry examines issues relating to your identity as a Latino, the Cuban-American child of immigrant parents. How does poetry help you to make sense of America? Of your ethnic roots? You recently participated in an important nationwide poetry conference sponsored by the Poetry Society of America called “What’s American about American Poetry?” Do you consider yourself an American poet? • Your poetry also explicitly explores your gay identity. Was poetry important to you in your coming out process, especially in the context of your other profession, medicine? What is it like to be gay in such a conservative field? How does your sexuality figure into your sense of yourself as Latino? As an American poet? • Which poets and writers have influenced your work? • Your poetry employs many traditional verse forms, which some might see as incongruous with your often unconventional subject matter. What do you think of the “free verse versus new formalism” debate? • What new projects are you currently working on?
# # # # Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization by Ian Condry Ian Condry is available to answer these and other questions: • In what ways did hip-hop come to Japan? What backgrounds were the first hip-hop artists from? Why did they become interested in hip-hop? • What do Japanese hip-hop artists have to say about 9/11 and the Iraq War? Are there other examples of politically oriented hip-hop in Japan? Are there any ultra-nationalist rappers? • Given that hip-hop is related to African Americans and racial conflict in the U.S., how can there be hip-hop in a homogeneous country like Japan? Are there analogous race issues in Japan that form the core of hip-hop there? • Are there gangsta rappers in Japan? What do they rap about? Are they related to the yakuza (organized crime families)? • Is there anything original about Japanese hip-hop, or does it primarily imitate the styles and sounds of hip-hop in the U.S.? Why did Japanese musicians initially think that the Japanese language was unsuitable for rap? • Why do you describe hip-hop artists as “battling samurai”? • What about gender issues? Is there misogyny in Japanese rap music? What do female emcees in Japan say about their male counterparts? • Are rappers in Japan another example of Americanization? Does hip-hop in Japan prove that culture globally is becoming the same? Do Japanese rappers appear on American rap albums? • Some people say Japanese popular culture is focused primarily on sweet, light, “cute” (kawaii) things, like Hello Kitty. How does this side of Japanese popular culture relate to Japanese rap? Ian Condry is Associate Professor of Japanese cultural studies in Foreign Languages and Literatures at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A huge fan of Japanese popular culture, he is now working on a book about anime. MULTIMEDIA available for press review: http://web.mit.edu/condry/Public/hiphopjapan/ Ian Condry has translated and added English subtitles to these song excerpts. They are in Quicktime format. King Giddra (2002) “911.” This music video produced one year after 9/11/01 opens with an image of the destruction caused by the atomic bomb at ground zero Hiroshima. The emcees Zeebra and K Dub Shine rap about the politics of media, terrorism, and nationalism. King Giddra is Zeebra, K Dub Shine, and DJ Oasis. Source: King Giddra (2002) Saishû Heiki (video), Defstar, Japan, DFVL-8052. Rhymester (2004) “911 Everyday.” Emcees Utamaru and Mummy D rap about the Iraq War. Interestingly, this song shows how Japanese rappers question the actions of both the American government and the Japanese government. They also call for young people to think beyond the United Nations and “media agitation” in order to construct a better world. Source: Rhymester (2004) Gray Zone, Sony Ki/oon, KSCL-850. Hime (2002) “Tateba shakuyaku” (If the peony stands). The female emcee Hime here illustrates some of the complexity of rapping in the Japanese language. In the verse, you can hear how she adds stress accents and makes the lines rhyme, two aspects generally absent from Japanese poetics. Yet for the chorus she uses a poetic form of tanka (related to haiku) which dates back to eighth century Japan. Source: Hime (2003) Hime hatsu (Hime’s first), DJ Honda Recordings, DHCA-1. Hannya
(2006) “Oretachi no Yamato” (Our Yamato). The rapper
Hannya wrote this song for the 2006 feature film “Otokotachi no
Yamato” (The Men’s Yamato) which portrayed the sinking of
the Yamato battleship in the closing days of World War II. Here Hannya
uses the occasion to call for peace. Source: Hannya (2006) Naibu kokuhatsu
(whistleblower), Avex Rush, AVCF-22605. # # # #
HEALING
SONGS and WORK SONGS While the first healers were musicians who relied on rhythm and song to help cure the sick, over time Western thinkers and doctors lost touch with these traditions. In the West, for almost two millennia, the roles of the healer and the musician have been strictly separated. Until recently, that is. Over the past few decades there has been a resurgence of interest in healing music. In the midst of this nascent revival, Ted Gioia offers the first detailed exploration of the uses of music for curative purposes from ancient times to the present. Gioia’s inquiry into the restorative powers of sound moves effortlessly from the history of shamanism to the role of Orpheus as a mythical figure linking Eastern and Western ideas about therapeutic music, and from Native American healing ceremonies to what clinical studies can reveal about the efficacy of contemporary methods of sonic healing. Together, these two books are an impassioned tribute to the extraordinary capacity of music to enter into day-to-day lives, to address humanity’s deepest concerns and most heartfelt needs. Praise for Ted Gioia’s Earlier Work Praise for The History of Jazz (1997) “Possibly the best survey to date.”—Ann Douglas, The New York Times “If you are looking for an introduction to jazz, this is it. If you know and love jazz well, this is your vade mecum. Me, I expect to be reading around in it for the rest of my life. . . . [It is] the definitive work: encyclopedic, discriminating, provocative, perceptive and eminently readable. With its publication, it can no longer be said that the literature of jazz falls far short of the music itself” —Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post “Gioia’s history stands a good chance of becoming the standard guide for general readers and academics. . . . Gioia coherently and eruditely compacts into 400-odd pages the work of 30 volumes. Impressive with epic sweep, he details divinely, too.”—Greg Tate, The Village Voice “Ted Gioia’s The History of Jazz is the work of a noted jazz scholar and performer, but it is just as plainly aimed at a general audience. . . . Anyone looking for a balanced, well-written popular history of jazz will certainly find it both readable and reliable . . . nor should more experienced readers expect to come away empty-handed.”—Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal Praise for West Coast Jazz (1992) “A book that desperately needed to be written and has turned out to be a surprise landmark and a masterpiece.”—Bruce and Joel Klauber, Jazziz “Gioia’s detailed, crisply-written work sheds long-overdue light on this much-maligned subject. . . . Gioia weaves serious musical analysis with engaging biographies of scores of musicians.”—Lee Hildebrand, San Francisco Chronicle “West Coast Jazz . . . ranks among the most distinguished works of jazz scholarship yet published.”—Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal Praise for The Imperfect Art (1988) “[Gioia] has chosen a formidable theme for his first book: how peculiar jazz is in comparison with the other arts, and what makes it that way. He works some dazzling, quirky variations on this theme. . . . [T]houghtful and thought-provoking.”—Peter Keepnews, New York Times “This book represents a breakthrough in how to listen to and think about jazz.”—Steve Paul, Kansas City Star “Thoughtful jazz lovers of all degrees of musical literacy ought to be delighted and enlightened by Gioia’s yeomanly effort. A rich little book.”—Booklist “These seven essays . . . explain the distinctive features of jazz more succinctly and precisely than almost any other book on the subject.”—Publishers Weekly # # # #
# # # # Famed Gardener Nancy Goodwin’s Biography of Her Garden at Montrose Something is blooming every day of the year in the renowned gardens at Montrose, Nancy Goodwin’s nineteenth-century property in historic Hillsborough, North Carolina. Since moving to Montrose with her husband in 1977, Goodwin has transformed more than 20 acres into an extraordinary complex of interlocking gardens that come in and out of focus as the seasons overlap and change> Beautifully written and illustrated, Montrose: Life in a Garden (October 2005) is Goodwin’s affectionate biography of her gardens, recounting how and why each section was developed over the years, including the Dianthus Walk, Nandina Land, Hellebore Slope, Mother-in-Law Walk, Snowdrop Woods, and Jo’s Bed. It is also a meticulous month-by-month chronicle of a specific year in these gardens—a year that saw a punishing drought that threatened Goodwin’s no-irrigation policy, a damaging December ice storm, and the beginnings of a plan to preserve Montrose in the future. Working on
her knees for long days throughout the year, Nancy Goodwin always has
a vision of how her gardens will appear in twelve months or in twelve
years. She will spend weeks, for instance, planting hundreds of snow drops
along a woodsy path in order to enjoy a fleeting week of exquisite beauty
in coming years. She never puts anything into the ground without imagining
what form, color, and texture it will add to a bed. With tireless patience
and unflagging optimism, Goodwin will wait years to see a single plant
bloom. How
I Illustrated Montrose I did these plant drawings on smooth paper with a hard pencil. The scenes of gardens, buildings, and animals, I drew on a rougher paper with a softer pencil. I used watercolor pigment for the most part, but sometimes luma dyes, which are brighter, and only rarely a color pencil. For the past 30 years I’ve used a .13-millimeter pen for drawings of this sort, but for this project I wanted to use pencil rather than ink because pencil lines convey softer, warmer, more life-like forms than I can produce in ink. Happily, today’s computer technology now allows clearer reproduction of this soft line than was possible in the past. My rather casual use of color may seem arbitrary, but I did not want to obscure the penciled delineation underneath. I was not attempting here the realism of the traditional botanical illustrator. There are only a few hours in which to draw a single flower. The tissue of petals changes in front of your eyes, and in the course of an afternoon’s drawing, the sun moves in the sky and the stem and position of a flower move accordingly. All but two of these drawings were done from life; Tony and Beany were drawn from photographs. I sat or knelt on the ground for the rarest flowers. I valued these perspectives because they were closest to those that Nancy experiences hour upon hour from dawn to dusk, but I never felt I could do more than an impressionistic sketch this way. Cuttings and greenhouse or cold-frame plants were more accommodating models on my desk at Montrose or at my home studio. About
Nancy Goodwin Goodwin closed the nursery at the height of its success in order to spend more time in her garden. She has developed 20 acres of gardens at Montrose and works in them most days for at least 10 hours. Almost all of the plants she grows, she propagates from seeds or cuttings.She is particularly well-known for growing cyclamen from seed, thus helping to conserve this endangered plant that has been smuggled from Mediterranean countries for years. The garden at Montrose has recently become a Preservation Project of the Garden Conservancy. The Conservancy is assisting the Goodwins in planning for the future of Montrose as a public garden and horticultural resource. About
Ippy Patterson # # # #
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