snap happy
Travel Photography
Steve Davey, Footprint (2nd edition), £19.99
Do you judge the success of your travels (and
self-worth) by the number of Facebook likes
your holiday snaps receive? This new edition
of
Travel Photography
might be your new best
friend. From simple concepts, like ‘how do
I use my camera?’ and ‘what constitutes a good
travel photo’, to editing tutorials and even
advice on how to sell your best shots, this has
all you need to be a professional show-off.
Just sit back and watch the likes flood in.
(s)lavish praise
Eastern Europe!
Tomek Jankowski, New Europe Books, £17.99
Shrouded in secrecy behind the Iron
Curtain during the second half of the 20th
century, Eastern Europe became a region
rarely spoken about in the West, excepting
stereotypes of Soviet bogeymen. Here, US
Slavophile Tomek Jankowski attempts to
rebrand the region as the literal centre of
the world, dismantling the stigma and
clearly having fun in the process.
Despite the book’s intimidating size
– almost 600 pages! – his colloquial style
succeeds in making this an accessible,
if thorough, history of pretty much
everywhere from East Berlin to the Black
Sea back to 500CE. And, as the
exclamation mark in the title suggests,
there’s a lighthearted element at play too.
Pages of dense research are broken up
with ‘Useless Trivia’ boxes, which up the
quotability factor. Did you know, for
example, that the swastika originally meant
‘to be good’ in Aryan Sanskrit? Or that
Cairo was probably founded by a Croat?
This should be recommended reading for
anyone heading to the former Eastern Bloc.
brutalist history
Concretopia
John Grindrod, Old Street, £25
As love letters go, this 400-odd
page psalm to the delights of
1960s new-builds must be one
of the kookiest. And yet,
Grindrod – himself born in one
of Britain’s concrete heartlands
– makes a good point: that
Brutalist architecture is the last
element of the 60s to be
embraced by vintage lovers. So,
although this book is unlikely to
transform the way we feel about
car parks, it’s an interesting
insight into post-war building.
food of love
Fork in the Road
Various authors, Lonely Planet, £8.99
Despite the Lonely Planet branding and
introductory hyperbole suggesting this is
a series of culinary epiphanies, this book isn’t
really about food or even travel. Instead, it’s
an examination of the powerful moments that
coincide with the act of sharing meals. In the
majority of cases, the tales – often humorous,
sometimes deeply moving – of the famous foodie
contributors’ memorable sit-downs intertwine
with childhood. The result is a collection of
stories that explore our complicated connections
with memories, invoked by that ever-powerful
sense: taste.
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V I E W P O I N T S
