“Adams, Shore, Baltz–all the New Topographics photographers made great books, but none are better than The Pond.”

You can listen to a conversation between Badger and Gossage on the Aperture website.

What I didn’t know is that the entire series is being exhibited—for the first time ever—at the Smithsonian this winter, through January 17. Looks like I’ll be making a trip to DC soon.

Of course there is a book, which I never got to see because it went out of print and is now hundreds of dollars on the secondary market. I was very happy to learn that Steidl has decided to issue a second edition, which is now available for sale on Amazon.com.

Joel Sternfeld, Walking the High Line

I’m curious to know how a second or third edition of a rare book affects the value of the first edition. I won’t lie when I say that I’ve been tempted to buy one of the more collectible copies of Walking the High Line out there, but it’s just not in my budget. Usually I don’t think of later editions as having the same collectible value, but I was surprised to discover not too long ago that my third edition of Sleeping by the Mississsippi is now worth almost $100. I buy my books for reading, not investment, but the effects of the market do have a significant effect on which books are available to us regular folk. It seems to me that Steidl must keep these editions pretty small to generate that sense of scarcity to encourage a quick sell-out.

If you are a collector, you might be interested to know that Jeff Ladd from 5B4 is currently selling a signed first edition of the book. Jeff is trying to raise some money right now, so if you did happen to be in the market for a collectible copy, you couldn’t buy it from a nicer guy.

Here’s some more Joel Sternfeld/High Line goodness from a 2002 profile on channel 13.

Stay tuned for a longer post about the High Line when I get some free time. It really is one of the coolest parks in the city and has a very interesting history.

Disclaimer: if you click through those Amazon links, I do get small percentage of the sale, but I only write about books that I love, and buy for myself as well.

© Mark Ruwedel, Tonopah and Tidewater #25, 2002

One thing that’s missing from Justin’s review is an image of the cover. There’s nothing I like more than a nice tipped in cover. Oh book tease, how you tease me so.

There is no specific release date mentioned, but it would seem to be sometime in the next month or two to accompany the show at the Museum of the City of New York, which opens October 9. The book looks great, but the box set, which includes an additional book and a signed inkjet print, is at the top of my wishlist.

Catskill Creek, New York, 1845, Thomas Cole

Nature and the American Vision: The Hudson River School at the New York Historical Society, opens September 15, with more than 100 famous paintings by artists of the Hudson River School, including Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, John F. Kensett, Jasper F. Cropsey and Albert Bierstadt.

I just found out about this show and I’m looking forward to it. A lot of these paintings are a bit too romantic for me, but they’re beautiful just the same, and I do enjoy looking at and studying them. I’ve been planning to start working in the Hudson Valley again later this month, and I think this show will be an inspiration.

There’s an accompanying book as well.

If this isn’t the sort of thing that floats your boat, you could try Ofer’s list of shows that will open over the next month or so. Simon Roberts, Todd Hido, Sally Mann, and Jeff Wall all look like good bets to me.

Timothy O’Sullivan; A Harvest of Death, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; 1863; Albumen print

Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté; Bend in the River Gosselin at Arthabaska

Alexander Henderson; Victoria Bridge, Grand Trunk Railway; About 1878; Albumen print;

I didn’t hear about this show until yesterday, and then completely by chance. I came across the exhibition catalog in a used bookstore. It was calling out my name from across the room—it’s absolutely gorgeous. I wondered why I had never seen it before and so I looked up the exhibition when I got home; it turns out the book won’t be released for another month. How it ended up in a thrift store in SoHo I’ll never know, but it’s mine now.

Unfortunately I am leaving for a big trip tomorrow and won’t have time to really go through it in depth, but I will report back in September.

Hey, I’ve got one or two images in the Flak Photo archives myself! What do you know about that?

A few of my recent favorites:

• Susan Worsham
  
• Kurt Tong
• Emily Shur
  
• Michael Lundgren

From the series Boonville, by Timothy Briner

Tim recently finished a small edition of hand-bound books for Boonville, and they look amazing. Each book consists of 37 black and white prints—printed, bound, and signed by the author. I am really looking forward to getting my copy.

Tim shared a few photographs from the making of the book, which you can see below.

Tim will also be exhibiting his work at Daniel Cooney Fine Art in January. A bit too early to mark your calendar, perhaps, but keep it on your radar.

Boonville was created with support from Cannery Works, a New York-based non-profit arts organization.

And now for something completely different:

I am participating in a global, Internet-based book club this summer, dedicated to reading the novel Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It is a daunting task, at more than a thousand pages, and one I have tried to start more than once. This time around, though, I will have the support of a huge online community in the Infinite Summer project, and a plan: 75 pages a week, plus endnotes, from June 21st through September 22nd.

If you haven’t heard of Infinite Jest before or don’t know why you would want to read it, I recommend Mimi Smartypants’ impassioned essay on her experience with the book. I have been looking for something like this for a long time, and now I’m really looking forward to June 21st!