[AJD] Disappointment: New JD Book-HOBBY BOOKS IN GENERAL

Dean Vinson vinsond at voyager.net
Sun Dec 12 09:47:25 PST 2004


Bill Brueck wrote:

 > Would invite contrary comments on this, but I make a point of having
 > the JR Hobbs books that cover those models that interest me.

Ditto.  I just the other night re-read my copy of his older book on the 
first numbered series, which is now in print again in an "updated" 
version (quoting from Richard Hain's editorial in the November Green 
Magazine).  So it's back on my list of books to think about buying.  I 
notice, however, that the ads for the book don't say "Second Edition" as 
they do for his book on the 30 series, and they've taken JR's name off 
the front cover, so I'll hold off on getting one until I can find a copy 
to browse through.

Mike Massengale wrote:

 > If anyone can recommend some "must have" publications that would be
 > in line right behind the "essentials" for an early styled "B" I'd sure
 > appreciate it.

Bill's recommendation of JR's books on the Letter Series is where I'd 
start as well.  You can read a little about them (or order them) at 
<http://www.greenmagazine.com/store/page9.html>.

Several others have commented about the various things people are 
looking for in tractor books, the abundance of choices and the scarcity 
of really excellent products, etc.  I've got a bunch of coffee-table 
types, a bunch of nuts-and-bolts-and-production-numbers types, and 
several operators, parts, and service manuals for tractors I've had or 
would like to have, and happily spend just as long making sense of the 
hydraulic system exploded view drawings as reading about the events that 
influenced this company or that product design or whatever.

I wrote my original post about Leffingwell's new coffee-table book 
because I was mad that so much of the text and a fair number of the 
pictures are recycled, but a big part of it is my own fault for 
expecting something else.  Anybody who buys two books by the same author 
that are both titled more or less "A History of John Deere Tractors" has 
it coming.  And as I've begun really reading the book, I'm starting to 
enjoy it despite myself.  I think Leffingwell's heart is in the right 
place and I trust the list's own Guy Fay to have helped him include some 
new and genuinely interesting stuff.  Given proper caution about not 
necessarily taking the text as gospel, it's no doubt a very good book.

But content aside, the packaging still rubs me the the wrong way.  I 
respect a lot of his earlier books because they're high density--lots of 
well-written interesting text and his trademark great photos in a 
reasonably small package.  I thought this new book, coming 11 years 
after his other JD history and being physically a great big damn thing, 
would be the same way--not just a revision but a major work, with enough 
new and better information to fill all those new and very large pages 
and support that heavyweight price tag.  Instead a lot of it is just 
bigger font size and more white space between each line.  Be careful, 
Randy.  In your IH book you write about the big shiny Farmall 560 with 
too many recycled guts and too few R&D hours...


Dean Vinson  --  Dayton Ohio
<http://my.voyager.net/~vinsond/>




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