Reading Season

Blink and summer is gone, but a bevy of books with glossy images can help the reader hold on to those precious moments.

By: Ilene Dube
      Summer is supposed to be a relaxed time, a time for indulging many hours – either on the beach, some distant mountain retreat, on a boat or in the shade of a backyard hammock – with book in hand. A time to catch up on the classics, or at least all the books you’ve read reviews of in the past year and recorded on a "to read" list – or perhaps just the large, glossy coffee-table books that have, in their stacks, begun to resemble furniture.
      Summer is also, as we know from experience, the shortest season – the months may contain 31 days, and the days are, technically speaking, the longest – but they slip away so much faster than those in February, whose paltry light and 28 days seem to last an eternity. Yet by mid-August, one hardly seems to have made a dent in all the books eyed in May.
      Meanwhile, publishers keep sending volumes, and this editor’s desk is piled high, so herewith, a catch-up. All three tomes are filled with photos that, in some cases, present more luscious scenery than what you’d see by actually going to the places described – the light is always crisp, the day always bright. Note: The order in which these books are presented is the order in which they arrived on my desk.
       Caroline Seebohm, who lives in Titusville, established herself as a maven of design with some of her previous books: Great Houses and Gardens of New Jersey (Rutgers University Press), Boca Rococo: How Addison Mizner Invented Florida’s Gold Coast and Under Live Oaks: The Last Great Houses of the Old South. It was her 1987 volume on English Country style that first attracted my eye, with its magnificent photos of old country estates, dogs curled up on Oriental rugs. What I liked most were the tattered sofas, threadbare rugs and worn-looking furniture – these were not people who ran out to Ikea for a new couch every three years, but lived with the furnishings of beloved ancestors.
      Ms. Seebohm tackles new turf with Cottages and Mansions of the Jersey Shore (Rutgers University Press, $39.95). As photographed by Bucks County resident Peter Cook, this Jersey Shore is as grandiloquent as Newport, but with Jersey funk – from wooden cottages in Ocean Grove and Victorian "cottages" in Spring Lake to a red-roofed property of an old sea captain at Cape May Point. Wraparound porches, fanciful gables and turrets and quirky bungalows serve as a reminder of childhood summers – or perhaps the summers we wished for in childhood.
      "To the fresh eye, unjaundiced by cliches of all-night beach orgies and washed-up medical waste, the Jersey Shore presents an astonishing paradox of untamed marshland and extreme development," writes Ms. Seebohm. "… like the Atlantic Ocean itself, beating endlessly against the white sands, the Jersey Shore constantly reinvents itself. The old cottages and bungalows are being torn down and replaced with fancy new mansions… While the ocean still devours the beaches on a yearly basis, elaborate systems of seawalls, dune planting and sand redistribution continue to hold the ocean at bay."
      Ms. Seebohm profiles various residents, their homes and their gardens, from the Atlantic Highlands to Cape May point, with stops in Asbury Park, Bay Head, Montoloking, Lavallette, Loveladies (just rolling those names off the tongue is pleasure itself), Stone Harbor and more. Amidst the sumptuous photos of gilded estates, the images that stand out are those of an old hotel in Asbury Park, with peeling paint and vines beginning to take their hold, and fragments of former fun palaces.
      The author chronicles the rise and fall and rise again of Asbury Park, from the 1890 Asbury Park Baby Parade to Bruce Springsteen’s career at the Stone Pony in the 1970s and Tillie, the grinning face that came with George Tilyou from Coney Island’s Steeplechase in 1956: "It’s history is as chequered as a NASCAR flag, and just as gritty," Ms. Seebohm writes.
      One of the best hopes for Asbury Park’s renewal, she finds, is the gay and lesbian community restoring and redecorating homes and opening restaurants and bars.
      She takes us into the home and garden of Thomas O’Leary, executive director of the Samaritan Homeless Interim Program in Somerville, who has been lead singer of the band Steel Tips that performed at CBGB in New York. Mr. O’Leary scavenges pieces of marble and brick from demolished hotels and roadwork projects for the garden, and the peach, coral and yellow colors of the house remind passing teenagers of Dorothy’s house in The Wizard of Oz.
       Marilyn Menago offers a pictorial tour in Princeton: History and Architecture (Schiffer, $29.95). With a bachelor’s degree in history and a certificate in historic preservation from Drew University, the Monroe resident taught herself photography and chronicles such landmarks as the Washington Road Elm Allee, Bainbridge House and Beatty House, Nassau Hall, Morven and so much more. Naturally, much of Ms. Menago’s research was done at the Historical Society of Princeton.
      There is scant text here, but the captions accompanying the photos provide much historical background on the buildings. We learn that the structure housing the Peacock Inn was moved from its original location at Nassau Street and University Place, and that the inn once welcomed F. Scott Fitzgerald, Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell. A caption accompanying an image of the Dinky station with the afternoon sun turning it golden reminds us how the station was once situated where Princeton University’s Blair Hall is located.
      And such a book wouldn’t be complete without a photo of the Princeton Cemetery, where it’s 08540 forever for Aaron Burr, Jonathan Edwards, John Witherspoon, Grover Cleveland, Paul Tulane and others.
       In contrast to the architectural jewels of the Jersey Shore and historic Princeton, nature photographer Bob Birdsall gives us a folksier account in People of the Pines (Plexus publishing, $39.95). Open the book to a photo of Jim Murphy and the Pine Barons, who have performed to packed crowds at the Princeton Public Library, but more regularly perform at Albert Music Hall. There are pictures of the Jersey Devil – or at least a person (Trenton-born Pine Barrens storyteller and historian Cliff Oakley) costumed as the mythic creature – and an "American Gothic" style couple of cranberry farmers with their rakes in hand.
      Mr. Birdsall profiles everyone from a circuit preacher/farmer, former Gov. Brendan Byrne, who played a critical role in Pinelands preservation, to the proprietor of Lucille’s Country Cooking in Warren Grove. What makes it so successful? "…hospitality and chit-chat are free and the coffee ain’t bad either," Mr. Birdsall quotes Lucille, who has been honored for her work on behalf of abused women and children as well.
      Another character is decoy carver and storyteller Gary Giberson, who maintains a replica of a 1930s gas station, and with his wife runs a folk art center where doll making, basketry and other crafts are taught.
      One of the world’s leading experts on tiger beetles, entomologist and author Howard Boyd, is shown here with his obsessions: setting traps for beetles and tagging them. The author of field guides to the Pine Barrens, Mr. Boyd, 90, retired in 1969, and still hikes through the Pines for research and book projects.
      "The Jersey Shore itself is more than its houses, gardens, communities or natural beauty," writes Ms. Seebohm. "It is, for those who have spent summer there, a rich storehouse of memories that make up an essential part of their lives." And Ms. Menago feels the same way about Princeton.
      "After more than two years of scouring for images that depict the essence of Princeton, it was hard to say goodbye," she writes. "I have come to love Princeton and now think of this lovely town as my own."
Books described are available in area stores or at online sellers.