I was wondering if anyone else has read it through, and what you thought of it?
Brunton:
There are already a couple threads on the book at:
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=24012
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=-1&TOPIC_ID=23790&REPLY_ID=231902#231902
I liked the book. I breezed through it more quickly than anything else I’ve read recently. Although some will fault it for being divisive, it really gives some good insight into why many of us are so passionate about this hobby (or collection of hobbies known as model railroading). I asked by wife to read it so she could understand this “obsession” better. She didn’t but I talked about it anyway.
-Jer
Add this thread
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=21898
So…are you an Operator, or a Scenery Man?[;)]
Jumping around the threads, I noticed the bad review of the book by Jonathan Yardley in the Washington Post. Mr. Yardley, a Pulitzer prizewinner himself, usually reviews books about people, politics, and philosophy along with other light classics. He just doesn’t get past the Capitol and the White House enough to soak up the beauty of Washington’s trains and hobby shops. Let’s send him a nice N-scale set for his desk and see if he can be reformed!
How can you ask an obvious non-modeler to review a book about model railroading? Its like asking a Novelist to review a book on Scrapbook making? Of course thier going to poo on it (or in it).
I have no idea if I am registered. If I am, I can tell you that Sam Posey’s book is a gem. It is a story of a time line that anyone from the forties and fifties can relate to from our first Lionel train to the great quote near the end of the book " We are all Grandchildren of John Allen". In between yes, there are chapters on obsessions such as Sam’s 12 hour a day 7 days a week marathons on building scenery that read like a stream of Jack Karouac consciousness that hints of the race against aging and health that like John Allen’s similar obsessions, may prevent us from achieving our dreams of the perfect layout. This is great stuff.
Peter Smith, Memphis.
I bought and read the book. I enjoyed it very much. I had my wife read it. She enjoyed it more than I did. As we chatted about it, I came to realize that it helped her put some things in perspective about my, er, “problem.” Seriously, it is worth the time it takes to read.
If only the book had a better title…
Titles always …
are less than we hoped for. [:-,]
I have heard good things about this book, and do plan to pick it up when the old HS jazz band has their fund-raising night at the bookstore.