Greetings from New Jersey: A Postcard Tour of the Garden State [Paperback]

Helen-Chantal Pike (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

New Jersey's lush and occasionally bizarre landscape is perfect...long history of resort and recreation...rich heap of images. -- The Sunday Star-Ledger November 25, 2001

The book is great!...it would make a great gift to anyone...who had ever lived in the state. -- Postcard Collector, December 2001

From the Back Cover

Greetings from New Jersey is the first book to look back at the postcards that have played a part in New Jersey's travel industry. Helen-Chantal Pike organizes her book by the state's six official tourism regions: Gateway, Skylands, the Delaware River, the Southern Shore, Greater Atlantic City, and the Shore. Through her section introductions and lengthy captions, she offers a lively history of each region in general and each postcard in particular. Her final chapter describes the history of postcard use from 1893, and details the different collectible genres of postcards. Loaded with full-color reproductions of vintage postcards, Greetings from New Jersey will interest all residents, visitors, and historians.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (October 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813529972
• ISBN-13: 978-0813529974
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 10 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,391,956 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in New Jersey's second oldest seashore resort, Long Branch, in the middle of the Suez Crisis. I grew up in a city suburb, attending the public school system until my father, the late author Robert E. Pike, and I were a package deal (student/language professor) at a private day school. I chose to go to college on the Piasa Bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River (thank you, Mark Twain) so I could see another part of the country: art museums in St. Louis and Chicago; the Cahokia Native American burial mounds in Illinois; the Elephant Rocks in the Ozarks; a medieval fair in Swanee, Tennessee, and Nilo Farms where I sat in a duck blind to count birds for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. My next stop was Paris to attend the Sorbonne, and backpack around Europe. My first newspaper job at the Asbury Park (NJ) Press led to my attending the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University where I wrote my master's thesis on the impact of real estate redevelopment around Tompkins Square Park in the early '80s. Six years of covering high tech and another six as a travel writer and photographer, and by the mid-'90s I was producing books. Still am! And, I use a ripped-from-the-headlines approach to lecture on media at Rutgers University. I also teach writing.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Postcard look at N.J. is coffee table treasure, January 11, 2002

By 

William S. King II (Neptune, NJ & Milwaukee, WI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Greetings from New Jersey: A Postcard Tour of the Garden State (Paperback)

From Sinatra to Springsteen, Princeton to Pt. Pleasant and all 121 miles of Jersey Shore coastline this book rekindles long dormant memories for those who grew up in the Garden State or were clamdigger wanna-bees. Helen Chantal-Pike mixes insightful prose with picturesque views of the Great State of New Jersey. This is a must have for anyone who has salt water running through their veins. Excellent coffee table book that you can come back to again and again. Can't wait until Pike's next book, "Asbury Park: Glory Days 1890-1980" is published based on the quality of "Greetings from New Jersey. . ."

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eat This Book!, December 13, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Greetings from New Jersey: A Postcard Tour of the Garden State (Paperback)

"Greetings from New Jersey, A Postcard Tour of the Garden State" is a hefty, gorgeous book that feels good to hold in your hands. New Jersey is one of the great postcard states, and author Helen Pike, between two covers, has made quite a handsome sandwich of it. From the diving horse of Atlantic City to the dining room of the State Reformatory in Rahway; from Thomas Edison at his West Orange office to the cute little Campbell's Kids, the tour is a colorful retro-joy that calms the nerves and sends the reader dreaming. Advertising, manufacturing, main streets, parades, disasters -- it's all there. And it's m'm! m'm! Good! With each card, Pike supplies an appealing bite-size commentary. As if the cards and comments aren't enough, Pike's essays are likewise terrific. The introduction to the book entertainingly deals with the advent of the picture postcard in general and its importance to New Jersey in particular. A closing chapter is titled "The Delights of Deltiology" (the study of postcards) and is a really useful introduction to the various categories of cards. It is perfect for people who wish to develop an interest in collecting. In short, "Greetings from New Jersey" is a book to keep close by and pick up again and again. It's really good enough to eat (which is why I bought two of them). It would make a great gift for almost anyone.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful remembrances!, February 12, 2002

By 

Pamela Waterman "Author, The Braces Cookbooks" (Mesa, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Greetings from New Jersey: A Postcard Tour of the Garden State (Paperback)

This outstanding collection brought back fond memories of trips to New Jersey many years ago. Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down.