Beyond Words: 200 Years of Illustrated Diaries
''The book to give to every journal-writing friend.''--Oprah.com''Brilliantly selected and arranged, visually as well as intellectually striking, this gathering of diaries of mostly little-known Americans brings us into abrupt, startling, and poignant intimacy with the wonderfully diverse diarists.''--Joyce Carol Oates, author ofA Widow's Story''What visions of other worlds this book contains! Rarely has a single volume transported me so vividly through time and place. In these botanical sketches, these seascapes, these wave-rocked scrawls, one can almost smell the dusty campfires or fish-rank decks where the diaries were written. One feels indebted to the men and women who have shared their lives, and to Susan Snyder for gathering them into these pages.''--Daniel Mason, author ofThe Piano Tuner''Susan Snyder synthesizes historic fact and illustrated diaries, creating armatures that support timeless moments. We enter, experience, and leave with the palpable sense of being in someone else's imagination.''--Site-specific installation artist Ruth Boerefijn''It is a special treat to be given access to those intimate human experiences contained in personal journals, diaries, and sketchbooks (the latter a favorite of mine)--especially when the sketches, drawings, and paintings are there to freshen up the text.''--Painter Wayne Thiebaud''These brave diarists--their poignant, witty, scrupulous drawings, paintings, photos--open their lived days before us, in details to fill all our senses. How close they feel--that pencil work, that cast of light, those faces, gestures--how intimate their voices! You hold in your hands a magnificent historical document and personal treasure; it will take you on an extraordinary odyssey.'' --Joan Frank, author ofIn Envy Country''What a complex yet delightful treat--not just for the sketches, or the snippets of life observed through prose, but for the ease with which we're shown that no matter how our daily lives have changed, each new generation enters the scene with fresh and open eyes.''--San Francisco Chronicle Urban Design Critic John King''Susan Snyder's brief introductions are akin to reading a monk's marginalia in these one-of-a-kind illustrated manuscripts. To be able to view such an artful, deep, and broad cross section of California history and humanity in these most personal pages is a gift offered by no other work of literature that I know of.'' --Robert Pavlik, historian and author ofNorman Clyde''Susan Snyder'sBeyond Wordsis a magnificent document--stunning, charming, and haunting, as visually gorgeous as it is historically rich. To read these diaries is to be given an extraordinary gift: to witness key moments in American history as if for the first time.'' --Sara Houghteling, author ofPictures at an Exhibition''What a complex yet delightful treat--not just for the sketches, or the snippets of life observed through prose, but for the ease with which we're shown that no matter how our daily lives have changed, each new generation enters the scene with fresh and open eyes.''--San Francisco Chronicle Urban Design Critic John King''Susan Snyder's brief introductions are akin to reading a monk's marginalia in these one-of-a-kind illustrated manuscripts. To be able to view such an artful, deep, and broad cross section of California history and humanity in these most personal pages is a gift offered by no other work of literature that I know of.'' --Robert Pavlik, historian and author ofNorman Clyde''Susan Snyder'sBeyond Wordsis a magnificent document--stunning, charming, and haunting, as visually gorgeous as it is historically rich. To read these diaries is to be given an extraordinary gift: to witness key moments in American history as if for the first time.'' --Sara Houghteling, author ofPictures at an Exhibition