The Old Proverb Still Rings True: Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

So often in these days of mass-media blitzkrieg, when movies and books and magazines seem to pour down on us from every retail outlet (including Best Buy and Costco -- who would ever admit to book shopping at Costco?), it is in fact quite easy to judge many books by their covers, just as we often know everything we need to know about a two hour movie from its fifteen second trailer. The cover photo of Lisa Wogan's Backyard Blaze looks like it came from the pages of one of those outdoor furniture store catalogs that fill the mailboxes of every suburban house in America, and it makes this book look like one of those space-filling coffee-table volumes that has nothing substantial to offer, nothing that really needs to be read. And nothing could be further from the truth. Lisa Wogan has taken a hum-drum subject and infused it with fun, enthusiasm, and humor. I started reading the text and soon found myself smiling with delight at her brisk prose and her funny turns of phrase. Shortly afterward I found myself reading passages aloud to my wife, and then calling friends and saying "listen to this . . ." The book is both fun and funny. But it's more than that too. Wogan writes of the deep need within all of us to gather round a fire like our ancient ancestors (who didn't live in caves), a need so old it is beyond words and consciousness and is akin to the need that draws us to lakes and ocean shores. Like the essayists G. K. Chesterton, who has the ability to make us rethink our settled views in the power of his arguments, or Loren Eiseley, who shows us how millennia of human development still echoes in the corridors of our modern thoughts, Wogan's prose reawakens in the reader an awareness of the mythic wonder and poetry that flares to life when we kindle a backyard fire. No kick against John Granen's photos: they are excellent and expertly produced, but they are conventional. Wogan's prose shows yet again that language has a freshness of life and power that the camera can rarely equal. A book to enjoy again and again, and a book to share with friends around the fire.

Rating: