About now book bloggers list what they think are the best books of the year, but there have been no standouts that we've encountered this year in our subject field, so here's one from last year that deserves an accolade, primarily because it was nicely designed and by a woman at that. The cover is intended to resemble an old-time mounted picture and a hole is cut through the coverboard to reveal the picture which is part of a montage on the front endpaper. We would have uv-overglossed the picture instead, but the effect is novel. Inside there is a nice use of backgrounds and fonts, while good pictures get blown up to the size they deserve, often full page, and less good ones are kept to modest proportions. Best of all, no car is spread across the gutter and there is no paper wastage with "artistic" white space.
The author has clearly relied on photos taken by various people who in some instances are not very skilled in the art - often pictures are taken against the light or inside and poorly lighted, are low definition and a bit fuzzy or have bad contrast. You can improve these things to some degree with Photoshop, but there are limits to what you can do. Nevertheless, the best photos are good. The author's texts strike a balance between the things that a follower of a particular make would want to know, including restoration practicalities, and the salient but general info which suffices for the casual car enthusiast. All up there are 192 color pages and the book is hardcover.
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