Excellent anthology on its own; sent me running to find more work by five authors. ( )

In his introduction editor Brendan Burford explains, "[S:]yncopation literally means that an accent or stress is placed on the weak beat between the usually dominant beats. When music is syncopated, it can offer a whole new perspective on rhythm." Using this definition as a guide, Burford compiled a diverse collection of quality stories. Some of the tales such as the excellent "How and Why to Bale Hay" by Nick Bertozzi offer uniquely personal histories. Others illuminate fascinating aspects of historical figures ("Erik Erickson" by [a:Paul Karasik|296961|Paul Auster|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1212076067p2/296961.jpg] and "Dvorak" by Alec Longstreth). Burford and artist Jim Campbell relate one of the book's finest tales with the dynamic "Boris Rose: Prisoner of Jazz." Alex Holden's "West Side Improvements" chronicles the amazing story of graffiti artist Chris Pape (aka Freedom). Perhaps this extraordinary anthology's only weakness is a few too many New York-centric tales. But this is a small complaint. With Syncopated, Buford and his contributors have crafted one of the best books of the year. ( )

From my blog entry at http://wp.me/puHkv-1U3

This does all the things you could expect of a collection of essays. It makes you interested in things you never expected to be interested in, like baling hay or the history of postcards. It opens up whole new areas of knowledge, like the story of a man who started creating and selling bootleg jazz records around 1940 and progressed to obsessively cutting records of obscure jazz radio broadcasts, so that when he died in 2000 he left a vast collection of one-of a kind recordings; a man who painted striking murals in a disused New York subway station; the shocking episode of the 1905 Tulsa race riots, though massacre is probably a better word. It covers familiar ground in a way that makes the subject fresh. Text from FBI reports on Guantanamo prisoner interrogations is rendered poignant by Greg Cook’s stark silhouettes, Paul Karasik manages in eight pages to provide a critical biography of psychologist Erik Erikson, and Alex Longstreth tells the story of August Dvorak’s all but completely fruitless struggles to have his typewriter keyboard layout supersede qwerty. And it gives some poignant personal stories, especially ‘The Sound of Jade’, Sarah Glidden’s piece about accompanying her father to Wuhan to adopt a Chinese baby. ( )

The concept behind this book is very intriguing. Take a form of writing, the essay, and adapt it to a more graphic format. The quality of the essays in this book attest to the success of this venture. ( )