BEFORE AFTER by Ann-Margot Ramstein and Matthias Aregui, 176 pp RL: ALL AGES
BEFORE AFTER by Matthias Aregui and Anne-Margot Ramstein is truly a unique book that is hard to classify. Smaller than a picture book in trim size, longer than a picture book in page count, an not exactly a graphic novel, BEFORE AFTER is best described as a meditation. The title says it all, but the choices the authors make in images of before and after they choose to present are anything but predictable.
The first and last pages of the book are the first and last images I share here and, while looking at pictures on a device will not even come close to the experience of holding BEFORE AFTER in your hands and turning the pages at your own pace, taking in the images and their meanings at your leisure, but I hope what I have shared here will demonstrate the wondrousness of BEFORE AFTER, a book that I imagine being always on a coffee table where it can be picked up and put down by everyone at any time, over and over.
The first and last pages of the book are the first and last images I share here and, while looking at pictures on a device will not even come close to the experience of holding BEFORE AFTER in your hands and turning the pages at your own pace, taking in the images and their meanings at your leisure, but I hope what I have shared here will demonstrate the wondrousness of BEFORE AFTER, a book that I imagine being always on a coffee table where it can be picked up and put down by everyone at any time, over and over.
Source: Review Copy
