 | Author: M. Heiss (USA) | I'm a David Macaulay fan - his "Castle" and "Cathedral" are beautiful works of art and instruction, and his "The Way Things Work" is a masterpiece that my little inventors plunge into again and again. But he is also a great visual storyteller, with "Black and White" and "Shortcut" being two of our favorites.This book has two things going on. The first is an archaeological dig on the site of a shipwreck - very interesting description of how archaeologists do their work, and especially the complications of underwater work. This is first-rate. All the illustrations are done in three colors in this modern-days section - black, white, and blue. Midway through the book, a journal is discovered in the original Spanish shipyard, and the reader cruises into the day-by-day creation of a 16th century ship. (that part ties up so many loose ends, so neatly -- of course it never happens that way. Focus instead on the shipbuilding technology) These illustrations are...Read more | 14 |
 | Author: Amazon Customer (Ohio) | My sister's boyfriend picked this book up at a garage sale and happened to leave it lying around. I was drawn to the cover art and once I started flipping through the pages, I couldn't put it down. It's not exactly a literary page-turner, though the story is kind of interesting - consisting mostly of a diary that was discovered in the early 1990's that contained a man's account of his experiences building a ship in Seville, Spain in 1504. But the illustrations, especially in the second half of the book, are of an incredibly high caliber. I was highly impressed with Mr. Macaulay's abilities and look forward to collecting the rest of his books if they, too, include such interesting painted pages. | 11 |