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Title: Stone By Stone: The Magnificent History in New England's Stone Walls by Robert M. Thorson ISBN: 0-8027-1394-7 Publisher: Walker & Co Pub. Date: August, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00

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Average Customer Rating: 3.89 (9 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: Fascinating and comprehensive
Comment: This is a wonderful book. It blends science, history and art to create an interesting perspective on the stone walls of New England. Thorson discusses the geological aspects of stone, the various types of stone walls and how they were built as well as the process of frost heaving and the disintegration of old walls. I hope this book causes people who have looked at stone walls and have seen only rocks to take a new, deeper look at them. They, and "Stone by Stone" are quite poetic.

Rating: 5
Summary: Solidly Magnificent
Comment: "The stone walls of New England stand guard against a future
that seems to be coming too quickly. They urge us to slow down
and to recall the past."

This is only one of the many observations that Professor Thorson
concludes his marvelous book with. I must admit that his final,
summarizing chapter actually brought a tear to my eye - hardly
to be expected from a book on geology and regional history
mixed with, amongst other topics, some anthropology.

In other words this book has enough of everything to satisfy
every curiosity you might have about those tumbled down rows
of stones found in just about every New England forest and
suburb. A surprising wealth of information on numerous topics.
Fascinating scientific and cultural and historical background -
far more than one would ever expect to encounter considering
the topic. And Professor Thorson's writing style is commendably
clear and readable, with a poet's affection for his topic.

Quite simply one of the best nonfiction books I think I have ever
read (and I read quite a lot), for its perfect fusion of research, understanding and sentiment.

Almost an answer to my prayers during so many long, wandering and wondering forest walks.
I encourage you to read this book.

Rating: 3
Summary: More Geology Than Walls
Comment: When I picked up this book I thought: "How can an entire book be written about stones walls?" As it turns out the author did not write an entire book about stone walls.

The author gives us the hisory of stone walls starting with the formation of the earth, through formation of rocks, the ice age and finally American history. There is actually more about geology that stone walls themselves, although the author tried mightily to write a few hundred pages about them.

The geology and history is well-written and interesting. I learned quite about when walls were generally built and how the stones came to be that comprised them. However, the last third or so of the book - that part devoted to the walls themselves was often redundant. It seemed the author was searching for words to fill the pages and stretching - like the last pages of a term paper you know should be eight pages but you have to make the assigned ten pages.

A chapter on builders and technique would have been more useful than the stretched parts.

There are pearls of interesting history and I am not sorry I read the book. I just wished it had been shorter by an excision of the redundancies and "stretches".

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