Highway Kings

This is one of those visual history books that DK does so well and it puts to shame the books from other transport publishers. 'Trucks' is aimed at the general reader and picture heavy, the text is basically captions. The eight chapters cover various groups of years, so the first one is 1890-1919: The early years. The last is 2000-Today: Keep on truckin'. 

I liked the various company profiles: Ford, Renault, Man, Volvo, Paccar, Mercedes-Benz, GMC, Scania, Mack, et cetera. Individual trucks are picked for a visual survey, for example, a spread with Peterbilt 281 has technical details and three photos  (profile front and back) the next spread has seventeen photos with close-ups of the engine, dashboard and other parts of the cab. As well as highway trucks, there is coverage of fire engines, novelty vehicles (remember the Oscar Mayer wienermobile) accident recovery, monster earth movers. The last chapter looks at how trucks work: engines; chassis; suspension; inside the cab.

I think the interesting thing that separates this book from others is all the color cutout photos throughout the book; they are all beautifully done and they certainly gave the book a lift while I looked through it.

Take your seats to watch the space race 3/5

Mid-century modern complete ISBN 978-0500023471
and it's cheaper than Space age design

Space age design, Populuxe, Atomic pop, or just plain Modernism all mean the same thing when describing a design genre that used simple lines and vibrant colours for products in the fifties and sixties. The author prefers Space age so the book can use seventy-six photos  about the space race to the moon (all probably from the NASA PR department) but what have these to do with the eighty-seven photos of seating products mostly produced by French or Italian companies?

The twenty-one pages of text, in five sections throughout the book, mix space developments with seat and product designers. So, is this a book about the space race or comfy seating? There are a few photos of buildings, fashion, cars, lighting and products for the home. Unfortunately, there is no index, probably because there are no page numbers except on the text pages, so if you wanted to see a photo of the chimpanzee used in the 1961 Mercury-Redstone space mission, you'll have to sort it out yourself. 

This is hardly a worthwhile look at mid-century design, which is why I found the book very disappointing. If you want to know about this exuberant design style, it's far better to get the definitive 'Mid-century modern complete' by Dominic Bradbury (ISBN 978-0500023471) a paperback with 544 pages and over a 1000 photos and graphics. Oh yes, there is an index and NASA isn't mentioned.

UK

Space Age Design: Icons of the Movement : Martin, Peter: Amazon.co.uk: Books