Customer Reviews

Burning Book: A Visual History of Burning Man

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I have spent all of today reading Burning Book. A seven-year veteran of Burning Man, I feel like I know a lot about the event, culture and art. HA!
I have learned a lot reading Burning Book, including more information about installations I've interacted with, and even about some I've worked on!
Our project from 2006 gets a page in the book and I am eternally grateful and honored to have placement in this fantastic book. Thank you to Jessica Bruder! This book is a wonderful gift to your community. Kudos to you! You inspire me.

I went to several Burning Mans, since 1992, and once met Michael Michael, from San Francisco Cacophony, when he visited the Los Angeles chapter. So Bruder's account brought back much nostalgia. As she relates, the growth of Burning Man has also led to ever more intricate theme camps and art installations. Several depicted in the photos, I saw. Including the huge ball of ice, containing scores of clocks, that fell off as the ball melted. Or the archway of cattle bones. Along with sundry corporate parodies.

Her accounts of summer desert rainstorms is also quite accurate. Especially for 1995. When the ground turned to a thick mud, and walking was labourious. She shows a nice photo of a rainbox over the campsite. Those of us who were there in 95 remember the winds and rain quite well. Along with the sandstorms that caused visibility to fall to a meter or less.

Art cars are shown in several photos. Fantastically decorated. Surprisingly, Bruder doesn't seem to mention that the art car "movement" was centred around Portland Cacophony. She is from Portland and undoubtedly knows many in that chapter. Granted, art cars now come from all over, and perhaps Portland no longer dominates that scene.

In 1996, the book describes how there were 2 tragic events, that caused later Burning Mans to have tighter safety rules. One event was a motorcycle rider who died on the playa. Another was a vehicle colliding deliberately into a tent and hitting 3 sleeping people, crippling one of them. Unfortunately, there is little elaboration about the events. A reader new to Burning Man might be interested in more information.

One strength of the narrative is the extensive coverage of the first Burning Mans held on a San Francisco beach. Photos of those events are also nice. If you've never heard of Burning Man, you might not notice anything unusual about this. But other histories of Burning Man typically give cursory mention of the SF events, and usually have few or no photos.

The book also covers some other different ground from others on Burning Man. For example, it explains the assorted group of workers who spend several weeks there, doing prep and cleanup. A thankless task, for which they get very little money. Their experience is quite different from the few days that most revelers spend there. Bruder alludes to an esprit de corps amongst the cleanup crew. But that's scarcely universal. Some arrive and are simply overwhelmed by the stark conditions. And it is possible to be cynical about this espirit. Seeing it as a means of garnering cheap labour by the Burning Man organisation.

There is nothing out there that captures the experience of Burning Man better
than this book. With its inventive graphics and many pictures, and a very well written account by the author, it seems this book was created for both veterans and the merely curious.

Obviously there's no comparison to being there, Burning Man is a participatory event, something very different from a book or a DVD. But for a book documenting some of the art and some of society of Burning Man, this is a good effort. Best effort that I know of. One really catches some of the spirit of the event in the pages of the book. There's a good mix of early and later events covered as well.

Pure magic. That is how I would describe this wonderful book about Burning Man. I'd highly recommend it for those who long to relive the experience as well as for those who are merely curious about this amazing cultural phenomenon.

The product arrived promptly, carefully packaged, and was as described by the seller. I'm very pleased.

I am proud to have this among my collection of books and Burning Man memorabilia. Jessica has done a beautiful job of capturing the spirit of the playa. You can see the love and dedication she put into each photograph. I love this book, and no I do not personally know the author.

Jessica Bruder has been a partipant not only in the event experience, but has worked with crews like Flaming Lotus Girls and the Temple Crü (yes, spelled with an oomlat). She's been out there weeks in advance and helped bring wonderful visions to life. Dust courses through her veins.

In this book she has meticulously collected stories and memorabilia from years past -chronicling the evolution of the the event and the community. I'm so happy she scanned into this book all the schwag, ticket stubs and other crap so that i can toss mine.

This is he book to get.

Very detailed overview of Burning Man and its history. The graphic content is fantastic and the layout of the book is fun to work through. If you haven't been it will give you as close a sense of what it's all about that you could possibly get without attending. If you have been, you'll enjoy someone else's perspective and the history of where it all began.

The foreword in Jessica Bruder's outstanding documentary book about the transient annual work of art in the desert reads as follows: 'It all began in 1986, when a pair of friends burned an eight-foot-tall effigy on Baker Beach in San Francisco in front of an impromptu audience of twenty. Two decades later Burning Man has evolved into a dazzling annual extravaganza dedicated to radical self-reliance and radical self-expression, attracting nearly forty thousand people. These revelers - an eclectic mix of punks, geeks, families, ravers, grad students, gearheads, hippies, and tourists - turn the ancient lakebed of Nevada's Black Rock Desert into a bustling city that exists for one glorious week before disappearing in a cloud of ashes and dust.'

With that brilliant introduction no other words are necessary to entice the curious reader to purchase this book - a compendium of photographs of art objects, finely designed book making, and photograph upon photograph of the folks who make this true work of art exists for the moment. The art shares the realm of funny, hilarious, grotesque, wild, naughty, nude, political - all in some of the more fantastical forms imaginable. It is a true history punctuated with the people who create it and those who participate in this transient miracle of imagination. It is a delightful read and an important document of an annual art work that should not (and cannot!) be ignored. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, April 10