Adobe is a reprint of a book that was published, as nearly as I can tell, more than forty years ago. As such the text was dated and the older black and white photos were disappointing. The publishers would have been better served to have printed a revised edition with updated text and fresh COLOR photographs.

The beautiful cover photograph led me to believe that this was a book on interior design. I was surprised, but not disappointed, to find that it is more than that. With many detailed drawings and black & white photos, "Adobe" explores the history of adobe buildings and the people who constructed them. Architectural components such as windows, doors, patios and hardware are covered in detail. Two sections of color photographs show the beauty of adobe homes. The authors include a guide to adobe public buildings in the hope that readers will "explore for yourselves and discover!"

Adobe: Homes and Interiors of Taos, Santa Fe, and the Southwest is more than a simple coffee-table book of splendid pictures, it is more of a compendium of different decorating and design styles of the American Southwest. It satisfies everyone, from someone who is thinking about doing some decorating in a southwest motif to the hardcore connoisseur of the myriad of options available. The secret to the beauty of this art style likes in it's inherit simplicity, and it's strong connection to nature. Even the black and white photos add to the timelessness and nostalgia that this book evokes. ( )

My only wish for this book would be more color photography as in the cover photo. I mistakenly believed this would be more of a "coffee table" book. I even had a companion book on Mexican building styles picked out to place it with!

I was pleasantly surprised to find this was much more than a coffee table book!

The book is crammed with information, history and building techniques. I have not bee able to digest it all! For someone who wants detail of this building style, how it came about and the influence it has in the world today - this is a solid resource For someone looking for a pretty coffee table book - look elsewhere ( )

Please make note from the beginning: this is NOT a new book, but a reprint of a title copyrighted (and presumably published) in 1988. Occasionally the text is dated, but this is not a serious problem. One wonders, of course, if the artists and other sources cited are still working, as described here.

What do appear quite dated and somehow disconcerting are the photographs of which there are a great many. Photographic and printing technology have improved so in the last twenty-five years that one feels one is holding an old book – used or rare – rather than a 2012 title. The sixteen pages of color photos (pp33-40. and 169-176) do not appear as deep, bright, and accurate as our computers have taught us to expect; but even more distressing, the black-and-white photos seem faded, even amateurish. At first I thought this might be because some of them are old snapshots having been preserved from the past, but the quality persists throughout the book, including the most current of the illustrations.

Furthermore, the design of the book itself (the placement and balance of illustrations and text), is quite conventional and uninspired. The section on fireplaces, for instance, has absolutely fascinating material, but the photos make it very hard to make out detail and the pages follow one another like an old slap-dash scrapbook or photo album one might find in one’s grandparents’ attic. Contrast these with the photo and design on the cover (presumably recent): these colors are vibrant, the detail easily examined, the lighting and shadows quite dramatic and pleasing – in other words, the photo itself is a work of art. The design is bold and carefully worked out. It sets up expectations for the content of the book which are definitely not fulfilled. For an art book (or coffee-table book) in 2012, priced at $32.95, one expects more.

Having begun with this disclaimer, I must hasten to say that the content of the book is still quite informative, interesting, and sometimes even inspiring. From the first statement in the section defining “adobe,” one is hooked: “Adobe architecture houses almost half of the world’s population today.” I had never thought about this and, consequently, was quite surprised. But, of course, I quickly responded: the world to which I am accustomed, which has hasped my vision of “reality,” is not “the world,” not at all. It’s my own little sphere. Adobe helps me see beyond this sphere to another world altogether.

In spite of my overall disappointment in the book, let me be clear about two of its important features: First, its subject matter and the information it presents is still timely, interesting, and culturally important. Second, the very readable prose proceeds largely by picture captions and brief historic or descriptive essays illustrated with numerous, helpful line drawings. The book rewards careful reading, casual browsing, and several approaches between these two extremes,

I found myself going hop-skip-and-jump, simply because so many topics invited me with equal intensity. I kept coming back to fireplaces time and again: fascinating. But then portals would draw me away (what we in the Old South called porches, very welcoming, very practical, very charming). Nichos and bancos (these expressive terms are needed for they are much more than niches and benches) are many and varied. The patios and some of the color photographs of flower boxes and portal vines as well as Valerie Graves' pastels of spring blossoms made me wish for a chapter on landscaping.

And, to give credit where credit is due, Graves' line drawings illustrating the main designs in each chapter are extremely commendable -- simple, but clear and informative.

So, to conclude, the content of the book and its cultural significance deserve more attention that it will probably get in its current format. ( )