California: A Sketchbook

Rating:
Summary: Atmospheric journey through the Golden State
Review: What Cooper's book is not: ponderous or trite, heavy-handed or unthinking. On the contrary, Cooper does a wonderful job of blending keen observations with a terrific simplicity. It didn't tell me what to think or see, but it did a wonderful job of showing me what the state was about--warts and all. Rarely have I felt that a place was so well captured. And it took all that Cooper did, the pictures and the text, to pull it off. Without either, it wouldn't have worked, falling into simplicity or pedantry. But it does work. Imagine Bruce Chatwin with a sketchbook. It was a real joy to read.