Not enough has been written about John Barth. This book pulls what has been said already together in an enlightening way. It helps if you know a little about literary theory. If not, you can just skip the first two chapters. The part about Lost in the Funhouse is especially enlightening.

Don't get me wrong. This book is full of some wonderful and interesting photographs. It's the self-indulgent discourses at the beginning of each chapter that this book could live without. Just let the photographs speak for themselves.

On a purely superficial note, the binding of this book is ... a flimsy cardboard somewhere between a hardback and a softcover. Not what you'd expect from [the price of the] book.

Instead of seeing a photographer's work, it presents the B/W plus a few colour photographs collected by the world known graphic designer, Alan Siegel (to know more about his graphic design, see Sagmeister - Make You Look). He tells the story behind his profession, and how photography evoles from hobby, to professional photography, and to collection. At the end, the importance of the images is linking to him personally and impacting him.

An interesting section is about circus, where the cover picture is remarkably full of mystery. The book is in extra-large size, which allows photos to be printed in fine resolution and size, somehow like a framed picture.