Burn This!

To quote JD Salinger, "What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it." Here at See, we have learned from our neighbors down the hall the importance of a good book and because we care we would like to introduce a new segment to our blog in which we will be recommending and reviewing books from the See Management library.

To kick things off, I want to talk about Taryn Simon's An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar (Steidl Publishers, ISBN 978-3-86521-380-8). This volume, boasting a forward by Salman Rushdie, is a photographic documentary of establishments and practices which are somehow integral to American life and culture but are obscure to those without special clearances, fancy badges, or controversial associations. An American Index promotes the reader-voyeur to the level of Authorized Personnel- often at the compromise of the reader's comfort level and moral and ethical associations. Esoteric. Sometimes provocative. Entirely engaging.