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Rating: 
Summary: The real Vermont, from a rusty Subaru
Review: I love this book! Helen Husher makes a great tour guide. She spends as little money as she can while bumping along Vermont's back roads and interstates to find the quirkiest and most inspiring places and stories. A travel book like no other.
Rating:
Summary: A Fascinating Little Book
Review: This book describes a number of fascinating ordinary places that are tucked around the state of Vermont. What makes the places fascinating is Husher's historical details- -for each place, she tells the story of how the site came to be and what made it famous. Some of the sites, like the Donohue Sea Caves are eons old, while others like the Bread and Puppet Museum were developed only recently. Some are famous, like Champ, the monster of the deep, while others are virtually unknown, like the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870. Although Husher probably didn't intend to make a statement about art, I found the juxtaposition of the state highway rest area art and the Bread and Circus Musuem quite telling. She describes how a group of artists, including some famous ones, in the 1970s created a series of sculptures to be displayed to ordinary people at rest stops. Since this was to be people's art, it was made in ordinary media such as concrete. Funny enough, even though people drive by these creations every day and walk right past them at the rest stops, nobody seems to notice them, and the concrete is rotting away in the elements. Is this a tragedy? For whom? It seems to me that if the art is so unengaging that people don't notice it even when it's placed right in front of their faces, it's not art at all but a sad Emperor's new clothes kind of waste of space. In contrast, other art described in this book, such as the puppets at the Bread and Puppet Circus are so compelling and interesting, that they draw people in to see them in such a far-off corner of the state as Glover. Likewise, the sculpted granite headstones in the Hope Cemetery in Barre were created by artists who work in a medium that would last for generations. That's because they were doing their art on commission, responding to the wishes of their patrons and communicating through their art to their entire community. The abandoned highway art seems more like taunt the audience- -give them something incomprehensible and ugly, but since the audience won't appreciate it anyway, don't bother to make it last.
Rating:
Summary: Open your eyes
Review: This book describes a number of fascinating ordinary places that are tucked around the state of Vermont. What makes the places fascinating is Husher's historical details- -for each place, she tells the story of how the site came to be and what made it famous. Some of the sites, like the Donohue Sea Caves are eons old, while others like the Bread and Puppet Museum were developed only recently. Some are famous, like Champ, the monster of the deep, while others are virtually unknown, like the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870. Although Husher probably didn't intend to make a statement about art, I found the juxtaposition of the state highway rest area art and the Bread and Circus Musuem quite telling. She describes how a group of artists, including some famous ones, in the 1970s created a series of sculptures to be displayed to ordinary people at rest stops. Since this was to be people's art, it was made in ordinary media such as concrete. Funny enough, even though people drive by these creations every day and walk right past them at the rest stops, nobody seems to notice them, and the concrete is rotting away in the elements. Is this a tragedy? For whom? It seems to me that if the art is so unengaging that people don't notice it even when it's placed right in front of their faces, it's not art at all but a sad Emperor's new clothes kind of waste of space. In contrast, other art described in this book, such as the puppets at the Bread and Puppet Circus are so compelling and interesting, that they draw people in to see them in such a far-off corner of the state as Glover. Likewise, the sculpted granite headstones in the Hope Cemetery in Barre were created by artists who work in a medium that would last for generations. That's because they were doing their art on commission, responding to the wishes of their patrons and communicating through their art to their entire community. The abandoned highway art seems more like taunt the audience- -give them something incomprehensible and ugly, but since the audience won't appreciate it anyway, don't bother to make it last.
Rating:
Summary: A Fascinating Little Book
Review: This book was given to me as a gift from a friend of mine who knows how fanatically in love with my home state I am. I was skeptical, expecting another quaintifying take on how picturesque Vermont supposedly is. Instead, I found a thoughtful, well-researched book, full of discoveries and anecdotes surprising even to a Vermonter whose family has lived in the state for generations. Husher captures what's truly amazing about the state, and any small place really - the accessibility and exhilarating simplicity of its beauty and its history.
Rating:
Summary: Finding interest in the commonplace
Review: This is a well-written, relaxing read that takes pleasure in common things. Far from being a guidebook in the usual sense, it guides the reader into a state of mind that helps him view his own world with more interest, even if he never visits Husher's Vermont.
Rating: 
Summary: the joy of looking
Review: When a place is your home it gets under your skin; you feel it breathe when you do, and you want other people to feel that too. And when you have fun with the writing maybe it shows, and what shows is what is close to the heart. If my book gets you to come to Vermont, then that's fine, but what I really hope is that it will explain to you the joy of looking. You can look without coming here, and you can find joy without spending any money at all. So go ahead--read the book and then try this at home. Your home has as many surprises as mine does, and as much to offer the eye and heart. Yours, H
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