The heading above is from Vance Packard's 1957 book `The Hidden Persuaders' quoted on page 140. Throughout this interesting book of photos there are other quotes, mostly from Fortune magazine (who Weiner frequently worked for) which have been chosen to tie-in with the images and they help to give the pages an extra punch.

I think the photos really do capture the feel of the white, middle class, suburb living, conformist, nuclear families of the fifties, who were, after all, the driving force of the economy. The chapter heads give a flavour of the contents: Prospects and promises; The hard sell; Organisation man; A woman's world; Nuclear families; Success stories, for example. Weiner's camera looks in on the work and domestic life of these people without comment. The Organisation man chapter is particularly revealing with just fifteen photos so much is said: corporate recruitment; trainees; sales meetings; the golf club; wives socialising; moving into a new suburb (Park Forest, Illinois is featured a lot throughout the book) and the last photo, the well known one of the commuters arriving home on the 4:51 from Chicago.

The last chapter, The Lonely crowd I thought was rather out of place and maybe the photos of police work, a psychiatric hospital, a couple of Montgomery, Alabama from 1956, a New York city newspaper seller among others were to show the range of Weiner's assignments though this aspect of the fifties has really been summed up by Frank's The Americans.

The design and production of the book is fine except for the glaring problem of the coarse screen used: 133! Most of the photos have plenty of detail that need to be seen and if the book was published in the last few years I bet it would be 200 to 250 and printed on a good matt art paper.

A timely publication to tie in with the seventy-fifth anniversary of the New Deal and it's a worthwhile addition to the only other book on the subject: Christopher DeNoon's `Posters of the WPA' (ISBN 0295965436).

Ennis Carter has edited a lovely book of almost five hundred posters, divided into twelve sections. Though there were thousands produced the selection here will give you a good idea about the style and themes. Having looked through the book several times I feel there a couple creative styles shown in the posters: the solid colour modernist ones with their angled headlines in geometric type promoting industry and the more whimsical folksy ones for art shows and plays. All of them reflect what is possible with the cheap silkscreen process so there is an absence of photos or anything that required a graduated tone. Fortunately the technique more or less makes artists and designers go for something simple and direct using two or three colours.

Most of the posters use silkscreen though I was surprised to see some that were captioned as `Hand painted on board', surely there weren't many produced like this. The cultural event ones had to present a lot of type detail for name of the event, players, location and ticket prices whereas the ones that could be called propaganda presented a straightforward message: Careless talk costs lives!

The book's production is first class with good paper and printed with a 175 screen and nicely all the posters have a drop shadow which lifts them off the page. I think Christopher DeNoon's book (out of print but worth searching out because the price seems to rise yearly) is the one I prefer, though it has a lot fewer posters, 280 in colour, it benefits from several excellent essays about the WPA background to the times plus it's beautifully designed.

Both books will probably be the only ones ever published about WPA posters and they both cover the subject beautifully.

I haven't bought a Greg McDonnell train book since `Heartland' and `Signatures in steel' in the nineties but seeing his name on this large title convinced me. I've always loved his train photography because he has the creative knack of taking beautiful compositions with that little bit extra: perfect framing.

The fact that this book for the armchair rail fan presents photos for reference is no reason to skimp on image quality and three hundred throughout the pages generally achieve both aims. I was particularly pleased to see so many photos of clean units so you can check out the detail of the trucks or cab design. You'll even see photos of clean SP units from years ago when they used that incredibly dirty looking blue/gray paint scheme (actually, nothing wrong with the color, it's just that they never bothered to clean them).

A couple of really neat spreads caught my eye with exploded type photos of a GE AC6000CW, SD90MAC-H and EMD SD70ACe and photos of twelve different trucks. A simple sort of visual idea that works well. The inclusion of passenger loco units was a good idea.

Overall a very impressive book with a ton of information in photos and text. Plenty of specs about various models, too. My only criticism, very common in transport books, is the habit of writing long captions in one paragraph and some in the book are really long in several lines set to the type area width.

Congratulations to Greg McDonnell for delivering the goods with this one.

The book covers an interesting period in Stephen Shore's creativity, it captures the time between the 35mm snaps of `American Surfaces' and more formal 8x10 camera style of `Uncommon Places'.

The 296 pages are split into two sections: 200 devoted to Shore's journal of his trip from July 3, 1973 to August 22 1973 and the remainder reproduce every photo from the trip. The journal section reproduces each day's activities: meals and what was eaten; the name of the motel/hotel; what was watched on TV or movies seen; how many Amarillo, Texas postcards were distributed in places other than Amarillo (5,600 of a ten card set, shown on three pages); the location of any exposures.

The pages also include various bits of printed ephemera: motel receipts; ticket stubs; newspapers clippings and fifty-six credit card receipts for gas (credited to the account of Shore Investment Co); and lots of postcards. All this is reproduced in a 200 screen on a matt paper.

The photo section, printed on a good quality matt art has all the images from the trip arranged chronologically and here are included some quite stunning images. Some of my favorite Shore photos are included: `Bay Movie House' in Ashland, Wisconsin on July 9 (dinner was steak, watched NBC nightly and Duluth local news) or `US 30 East Canton, Ohio' on July 5 (breakfast was fried eggs, dinner fried clams and watched kung-fu on TV). All of the exterior shots of the man-made landscape work so well because of Shore's excellent framing.

Between the journal and photo pages there is a four page insert, printed on pink paper, where Shore writes about the fascination of creative folk for car trips across America, those seduced include photographers Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, Shore and writers like Kerouac and Nabokov.

The book is more than a collection of wonderful photos because the details of Stephen Shore's life while on the road makes the images that much more intriguing. Oh yes, the book comes in a rather superior, sturdy slip-case and as this is a limited edition I think you'll find it worthwhile to check out the price across the web.

Anyone looking for a reminder of past childhood memories of playing with cars just like dad had should look elsewhere. I thought this was a very amateurish look at the subject and would only be of interest to serious collectors. The photos of the cars are just basically snaps with no finesse at all and the dominant element on every page is the box the toy came in. All the photos are cutouts and someone forgot to add a drop shadow under each car to give the image a bit of depth.

Everyone knows that having the original box for any collectible can increase the value no end and Bruce Sterling, who has all the toys shown in the book, has build up a wonderful collection but to make the boxes as dominant as the contents just seems silly. Admittedly though the graphics on the boxes do have a period curiosity.

My overall impression looking through the pages several times is of heavy-hand layout with large type to fill out the space not filled by the box and toy. Facing the title page is an ad for other titles from the publisher and at the back of the book there are four more ad pages. This seems an overpriced look at toy cars and the strap line on the cover probably sums it up: The Collector's Guide.

Ian Jeffrey explores the work of sixty-nine of the world's greatest photographers with some thought provoking text about their work. The pages are arranged in a vague history of the medium starting with Fox Talbot and four of his photos over four pages. Some names get more depending on how big their creative contributions were, for instance: Lee Friedlander six; Kertesz and Paul Strand eight; Ben Shahn, Bill Brandt, Cartier-Bresson and Tomatsu Shomei ten; Walker Evans fourteen.

The two great wars in the last century conveniently split the photographers into three sections with a further division created by the FSA photojournalists, who get a wonderful forty pages. Apart from Europeans and Americans the only others who get a look in are three from Japan.

Everyone gets a biography, an analysis of their printed photographs (one to a page) and additional text with a deeper interpretation of the themes in each photographer's work. I think these additional words are one of the strengths of the book. Jeffrey makes you think about the photos in front of you with suggestions which go further than just looking at the composition and texture. `How to read' in the book's title should maybe have been `How to appreciate'.

The 384 photos are well printed (300dpi) on good paper with a simple elegant layout though I found it slightly annoying that the second photo on each spread was too small, usually about a quarter of the size of the main image. There is an index and a bibliography. This listing would have worked better if it was placed with the relevant photographer's entry.

I expect everyone will have a favourite who isn't included (Weegee for me) but overall I thought this was a stimulating overview of photography and the relatively small number of people who created a very accessible art form.

I find it surprising that there are not more monographs in print about the work of this remarkable photographer. Basically there are only two that visually cover his career in depth. This one and a German/English catalogue `Andreas Feininger: That's photography' (ISBN 3775714294) published in conjunction with a 2004 exhibition.

Both books obviously have a lot of duplication but this Abrams edition has the advantage of being larger and has more of Feininger's early work in Europe and a lot more of his exquisite nature photography, particular close-ups of shells and flowers. Feininger also writes, with feeling, about his childhood, early years in photography and arrival in America and subsequent success as a photojournalist. The back of the book has a bibliography and a date list of his favorite Life Magazine assignments. He completed 438 between 1943 and 1962.

The book's production is up to the usual Abrams standards. The 197 photos are printed as duotones with a 175 screen, though had it been produced in the last few years (instead of 1984) I feel it might well have a finer screen to bring out the quality in so many of these photos.

I think it's worth saying that I prefer, of the two books, `That's photography'. Although it has a smaller page size, the tritone printing with a 250 screen really do make the photos sparkle but it also has an extra: it is the perfect book. The stunning photos; editorial flow; beautiful design; paper and printing make it one of those rare objects: something that is a pleasure to hold and turn the pages.

This is certainly an odd combination of material for a CD: thirty-six minutes of hip narration and forty-three minutes from a jazz concert. The common element is Al Jazzbo Collins who reads the tales and is the MC at a radio station sponsored concert. Individually the material wouldn't have justified a whole CD.

I can remember some of this hip stuff from the Fifties. Jazz, especially cool sounds from the West Coast provided a convenient background for up-front narration. Ken Nordine did it with a couple of Word Jazz LPs and Jazzbo issued several singles (collected here) of fairy tales and other stories. The problem with the material is that after the initial play and finding it mildly amusing it really doesn't warrant too many repeated plays.

Jazzbo's East Coast Jazz Scene tracks are fortunately worth repeat plays. The nine tracks, at forty-three minutes, must have been just a taste of the concert in November 1955. Larry Sonn, Gene Quill and Tony Fruscella combos play reasonable selections and Don Elliot contributes a fun track impersonating various vibe players. The highlight, though, is a wonderful seven minutes of Coleman Hawkins playing, as only he can, The Man I Love.

I thought Jazzbo's tales a bit of froth from the Fifties backed up with some unconnected pleasant jazz tracks. A CD of mildly interesting historical material.

WOW! Ten Lionel Hampton CDs in a box. But before click the BUY button you might want to know that not all ninety-seven tracks feature Hampton. I reckon at least eight are nothing to do with him. They sound like some mid-fifties small combo. Also worth knowing is that there is no information on the back of each sleeve other than track number, the name of the tune, composer and track length. So you won't know when the track was recorded, who was playing and which orchestra or group it was. All in all a pretty useless box set especially when the five and a half hours of music would have fitted on five discs.

There is one worthwhile item though: CD ten (forty-seven minutes) has fourteen versions of Flying Home varying from eight minutes (the wartime V-Disc version) to just under two minutes. I found it interesting to compare the different interpretations. The other discs feature big bands and groups totally mixed up. The sound quality throughout is reasonable.

Hampton and his fans deserve better than this feeble box set.

Far better value I think is the ProperBox set: The Lionel Hampton Story. Four CDs with ninety-two tracks arranged in date order from 1937 to 1949. It comes with a forty-four page booklet listing tracks, musicians, dates, original label numbers and Hamp's life story.

Turn the pages of this beautiful book and see over forty GM cars photographed by Michael Furman and perhaps the only word to describe them is: luscious. He must surely be the greatest car photographer anywhere and if you've never seen his work before you're in for a treat.

As the book covers the history of GM's Art and Colour Division (I wonder if the English spelling of Color was to suggest a bit of snobbery ) the photos start with a 1903 Cadillac Model A and end with a 2009 Chevrolet Camero. This particular GM division was the bright idea, in 1927, of company president Alfred Sloan and with thirty-three year-old Harley Earl in charge of styling a successful future for the division was assured.

The pages explore styling at GM with essays from ten contributors. Nothing particularly new here as you'll see from the back of the book bibliography, though the two I found interesting were Michael Lamm on the Motoramas and Tracy Powell on the rise (and fall) of the tailfin. The essays are illustrated with the usual stock historic black and whites but fortunately are they on self-contained pages between the Furman's portfolio pages. Strangely there is no index.

For me this is Furman's book and thankfully the publishers have taken the trouble to do it properly with a 300 lpi screen printing on first class paper. I don't think you'll see better photos of a 1940 LaSalle; 1951 LeSabre; 1958 Chevrolet Bel Air; 2000 Cadillac Imaj Concept or the amazing jet fighter on wheels: the 1958 Firebird.

These stunning photos and other GM cars lift the book way above the usual pictorial titles from other transport publishers.