No comments about Daytrips and Getaway Weekends in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine (Daytrips & Getaway Weekends).

No comments about Vermont Mountain Air for People Stuck Inside.

No comments about Hikers Guide to the Mountains of Vermont.

No comments about Picture book of Vermont.

No comments about Walking to Vermont: From Times Square Into the Green Mountains -- a Homeward Adventure.

No comments about National Geographic Western New England: New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut (Close-Up, USA).

No comments about Mountain Bike! Vermont.

1 comments about Messages from a Small Town: The Photographs of Neil Rappaport.

1. Pawlet, Vermont, is a bucolic community that not many readers will know. But then, as anyone with ties to rural America looks through this book's black and white photographs, the people on the pages will be familiar. Readers will recognize someone from years ago or see the similarities to relatives now gone. It is impressive that one small town could have three such sensitive photographers over the course of a century to capture the details of a fading way of life in a working-farm community. Their "visual census" and landscape views record the strengths and beauty of this place, but on a larger scale they represent all little farming communities from Maine to Minnesota, and north to south along the Appalachian Mountains. Neil Rappaport's photographs are dramatic and telling. He had a talent for capturing expressions that may have been fleeting but spoke of a lifetime. The short transcriptions of oral history collected by Susanne Rappaport add to our understanding of the photographs. This is a book to savor and return to again and again.

1 comments about Vermont, an Illustrated History.

1. As a lifelong Vermonter, now wintering in Florida, this book is a "must have" to remind me and my family of the special quality of life in the Green Mountains of Vermont. The book is a well written history of the state and includes splendid photographs of diverse scenes throughout the state.

4 comments about The Soul of Vermont.

1. I was born and raised in Vermont, have lived out of the state for years, visiting annually. This book really did bring me home to the Soul of Vermont. The photographs are wonderful. They just take you in. If you want to spend some time in Vermont and can't make the trip, this is THE book for you.



2. Reviewing a book such as this again supports the truth of that old bromide, "a picture is worth a thousand words." At least no words of mine can do full justice to Brown's talent as a photographer. He settled in Whitingham in 1968 and began to teach in a small rural school. During the years since then, he has taken thousands of photographs of Vermont in search of what is, to his own eye, that state's unique character. As he explains in the Introduction, over time he shifted his attention from Vermont's natural beauty to what he calls "the cultivated landscape." A preponderance of the photographs in this volume (many of which not previously published) were taken in the "Northeast Kingdom." He organizes his work according to the seasons which include the "Off-Season" from late-October until Thanksgiving. For at least a few of those who read this review, my comments about Brown may be of some interest but, I realize, merely suggest a context for the creation of works of art which I lack the talent to describe. If you cannot visit Vermont in person, do so by seeing it through Brown's eyes. If you cherish his book as much as I do, you will also want to have a copy of The Beauty of Vermont, edited by Tom Slayton. As both books clearly indicate, the soul of Vermont is its beauty...and beauty its soul.



3. I first remember seeing one of Richard Brown's spectacular photographs on he cover of Country Journal, a magazine devoted to celebrating rural life styles that ran a span of several years in the early to late 1980s. Brown's stunning photographic style showcased the day-to-day confluence of ordinary Vermonters living their lives in the rural splendor of the Northeast Kingdom in the far reaches of the lovely "People's Republic Of Vermont". Often Country Journal would feature a number of his photos inside each issue, so one subscribing the magazine began to look for them both on the cover and inside, as well. Indeed, his work was what made me search for the latest issue at the beginning of each month.

   Here he stuns us with the majesty of Vermont as it transpires through its incredibly beautiful cycle of seasons in a way that only a photographer of such obvious abilities could. Herein he shares many of his favorites, and several of these I have seen before in other venues. The problem with a book filled with such gorgeously shot, developed and produced rural photographs is that one is tempted to carefully extract them for framing on the wall. They are really that terrific! Photographs range from shots of landscapes to silhouettes of a farmhouse steaming against the winter cold, from children walking down a dirt-covered tree lined country road exploding into autumn's extravagance to an elderly gentleman leaning against a barn with his favorite cat. One sits transfixed by the sheer variety of scenes and colors so native to the rural landscapes and personal portraits. This is a wonderful travelogue into the heart of New England.

   Brown shows us all of the changes that transpire in the North country, a place where the changes are so frequent and so momentous that they comprise six seasons, adding both the dreaded mud season of early springtime on the one hand, and the so-called `off-season' after the autumn glory has been swept away, leaving cold bare trees and a hauntingly spare and vacant atmosphere to settle over the region on the other. Listen a few times to folksinger Tom Rush's rendition of "Urge For Going" a few times on the CD player and you will get the idea. Brown's imaginative hand is lovingly apparent in this book, displaying both the soulful visages of local inhabitants and the unique flavor of the haunting ever-changing scenery so typically Vermont. This is a distinctive and memorable recreation of what we love so much about being native new Englanders! Enjoy!




4. I am so moved not only by the wonderful images in this work,but also by the brief texts and by the way it all flows together through the seasons.The book bears witness not only to the soul of Vermont, but also to the soul of the man who wrote and photographed it.