Maine: The Seasons [Hardcover]

Terrell S. Lester (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 22, 2001

Maine is a place that inspires lifelong devotion in visitors and residents alike. It is a place that encompasses many worlds within its boundaries--mountains and lakes, rivers and forests, a dramatic coastline--and supports a unique way of life influenced by both geography and climate. Maine: The Seasons captures the rugged beauty and spirit of Maine by taking us into its very heart, through images and words.

Featuring 127 color photographs by acclaimed landscape photographer Terrell S. Lester, and original essays by four celebrated writers--Elizabeth Strout on spring, Ann Beattie on summer, Richard Russo on autumn, and Richard Ford on winter--Maine: The Seasons gives us a richly evocative, visually glorious appreciation of the look, the feeling, the essence, of Maine.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Photographer Terrell S. Lester presents rich images of his adopted home state in Maine: The Seasons. With essays by Ann Beattie, Richard Ford, Richard Russo and Elizabeth Strout, the 120 full-color photos of Maine in all its natural and cultural glory and nuance will make residents proud and potential visitors covetous. Beattie, a half-year resident, writes, "Maine is a serious place masquerading as a summer paradise," articulating something intangible also evoked by these photos of struggling mom-and-pop fishing businesses and untouched landscapes, something that modern visitors and homeowners increasingly crave as it slips from sight: authenticity, as opposed to quaint-making gentrification.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

"Maine is a land of diversity and extremes," photographer Lester states in the introduction to his exquisite homage to the state he now calls home. His collection of photographs is interspersed with four brief essays that describe Maine during each of the four seasons. The essayists--Ann Beattie, Richard Ford, Richard Russo, and Elizabeth Strout--capture perfectly the feeling of the delicate spring, the brief but welcome summer, the early fall, and the lurking winter. Russo's essay, a beautiful meditation on how experiencing autumn in Maine helped him to understand his grandfather's recognition of the autumn of his own life, is particularly moving. Lester's photographs, divided into sections by the seasons, give the reader breathtaking visuals to accompany the essays. They are so crisply evocative that the reader can almost breathe in the cool, fall morning air or feel the fading warmth of a summer sunset. The stunning images and the idea of nature's centrality in the state remain long after the book is closed. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (May 22, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375411186
• ISBN-13: 978-0375411182
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 0.8 x 11.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #582,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #20 in Books > Travel > United States > States > Maine

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow - what light!, May 23, 2001

By 

M. Alden "mainemike" (Maine, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Maine: The Seasons (Hardcover)

I recently purchased this book as I am about to move to New England and I am a working photographer. I must say, Mr. Lester's photographs are wonderful and the writing accompanies the images very well, making this a very nice book indeed. I am continually amazed at the quality (and variety) of light in Mr. Lester's photographs - I think I'm going to like this place. I like this book and would recommend it to others who are interested in travel/photo books related to the Pine Tree State. If I had any criticism at all regarding this book, it might be with the title itself. There seems to be a heavy emphasis on images from Deer Island and Stonington and surrounding environs. The title of the book , "Maine: The Seasons" might suggest a broader area of coverage. Maine is a big state - and it's great to see a photographer working in his own backyard, so to speak, but a more specific title reference may have been appropriate as many areas of Maine do not make appearances here. But this point is minor, and I digress.... overall I found this to be a fine book and a solid purchase. Cheers!

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Photos as rich as a great painting, August 13, 2001

By 

The author (Nyack, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maine: The Seasons (Hardcover)

On the recommendation of a friend, my wife and I stumbled into a photo gallery in Deer Isle, Maine, last week during our vacation (we are from New York) to see the work of Terrell Lester, not even aware Knopf had recently published this book. We were, in short, completely blown away by his photos, all of which, and more, are collected in this remarkable book, along with four essays of varying interest. Lester's photos are like fine art, to be specific, like the best of the Hudson River School of painters back in the 1800s who created such vivid landscapes, saturated with reds and blues and yellow (and that's just in the sky). His photos of islands, mountains, rocks, lakes, surf, trees and spectacular blueberry fields blazing red in autumn are rich with emotion. They deserve to be, and in fact are, on museum walls. For the most part, they are reproduced well in "Maine: The Seasons," but in this case, you can't tell a book by its cover-- a wonderful (but rather too typical for a Maine book) photo of a father and a son heading off to work in their lobster boat. You won't be disappointed.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning, February 3, 2002

By 

Bruce Hart (Salem, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maine: The Seasons (Hardcover)

Stunning photographs and poetic/romantic writing. Makes me wish I had gone to Maine (during the summer of course!) while I was in college in New Jersey. This is a special book and it left me wanting more.