The Most Beautiful Villages of New England (Most Beautiful Villages) | 
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| Author: Tom Shachtman
Creator: Len Rubenstein
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Category: Book
List Price: $40.00
Buy Used: $7.49
You Save: $32.51 (81%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 462119
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.7
Dimensions (in): 12.5 x 10.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 0500018006
Dewey Decimal Number: 974.009734
EAN: 9780500018002
ASIN: 0500018006
Publication Date: October 31, 1997
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Book Description
With this book, Thames and Hudson's renowned Most Beautiful Villages series turns its attention for the first time to America. Honored as the birthplace of the Revolution, the six states that comprise New England are home to some of this country's most beautiful and cherished villages--places that preserve and reflect its architectural and cultural legacy. Here, in countless public squares and cemeteries, are monuments to the battles of the Revolution, and memorials to the heirs of the revolutionaries who themselves marched off to preserve the Union during the Civil War. One of the most splendid repositories of American institutional architecture is found in New England's public meeting halls and churches, and in the industrial mills and factories of the nineteenth century. The book also celebrates New England's rich tradition of domestic architecture: seaside homes clad in weathered gray shingles, white clapboard houses surrounding village greens, and exuberant Victorian gingerbread homes. New England is justly famous for its succession of intensely realized seasons: its deep and snowy winter; its spring, which bursts forth in a cascade of melting snow and budding vegetation; its leafy, languid summer days; and, perhaps most famously, its autumn, when the landscape seems to be on fire with the vivid reds, oranges, and yellows of the foliage. The Most Beautiful Villages of New England presents over twenty-five towns and villages, chosen for their beauty and history, and for their diverse geography. Here are the fishing villages and towns of New England's rocky Atlantic Coast, from famous summer watering holes to isolated island hamlets. We explore farming villages and the highlands of New England's mountain ranges--the Adirondacks, Berkshires, and Green Mountains. In the river valleys we find quiet, exquisitely preserved communities and renovated mill and factory towns.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Ho-hum pretty. Doesn't do the region justice. November 27, 2006
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
I took this coffee-table photo book out of the library once I realized that one of the featured "most beautiful villages" in New England was Stonington, Maine -- where I lived for nearly seven years. I wanted to see what they chose to show about the Deer Isle area because hey, *I* knew what made the area so gorgeous. If they could capture Stonington, perhaps they could also bring to life the beauty of the other villages covered -- from Essex, CT to Grafton, VT to Nantucket, MA.
To my disappointment, though, the photographers chose rather humdrum locations to highlight. Nothing here is _bad_, mind you. The photos are perfectly nice. There's plenty of predictable photos of clapboard buildings and small town churches and autumn leaves. But it's the predictability that makes this worth flipping through once... and only once. It's as though you had purchased large-format postcards from the ordinary gift shoppe -- not captured something unique and beautiful.
I'm a little astonished that this book has so many pictures of the (admittedly beautiful) autumn leaves in New England (that is, they're beautiful if they don't make you think "Oh geez we'd better top off the heating oil"). But not a single picture of the mountain lupine blooming in the spring that, in my opinion, is far prettier. You'll see several inoffensive photos of boats tied up at the dock at sunset... but almost nothing that reflects the sense of community that can make small-town living so precious.
I'd hoped that this book would bring back a tiny bit of my years on Deer Isle. Alas... I'll have to dig out my own photos for that.
 Magnificent April 9, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I love books that have high quality photography, this is a magnificent book on new england towns.
Beautiful Photography Book! November 8, 2005
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm a big fan of quality photography. This is a great book with terrific pictures of new england, and all the good reasons to move here.
New England Beauty May 23, 2000
7 out of 11 found this review helpful
Wonderful photagraphs and great images of beautiful New England! Reminiscent of my childhood, and old fashioned villages of yesterday. A must for the coffee table!
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