Welcome to the finale of our 12 Days of Holiday Gifts. As we mentioned in episode 17 of the podcast, for the 12 days leading up to Thanksgiving, we’ll be giving you our picks for great gifts. Later tonight we’ll have a Gift Guide available for you to download (not sure what time, depends on when my guests go home!). The guide will include the 12 books featured on the blog, plus many other gift ideas, several under $20!
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The Oxford Project, by Peter Feldstein and Stephen G. Bloom

The Oxford Project is an amazing book that defies categorization. On the surface, it looks like a coffee-table book of black and white photographs. But as you will see from just looking at the cover of this book, there is more here than meets the eye. It’s a book of photos, yes, but it’s also an oral history, a portrait of a town, and a personal look at the people that make up a community.

Let’s start with the cover. You really must see it in person. You start with the image of a small boy, and then shift the book just a bit, and it becomes the image of a man. That’s the same person, Hunter Tandy, in two photographs taken 20 years apart, and it those 20 years in between that are the focus of this book.

In 1984, Peter Feldstein set out to photograph every resident of Oxford, Iowa (pop. 676), and he managed to get all but a few. In 2005, he did it again, and this book is a compilation of the before-and-after photographs. And it’s not only how the residents have changed physically. Along with the photos are compelling stories that the townspeople told to Stephen G. Bloom. Like any town in America, those 20 years brought its residents times of triumph and times of sorrow. Many of the stories are in these pages. It’s a portrait of a town, yes, but it’s also a reminder that people are alike in many ways, no matter where they live. It’s a tribute to the fading small-town customs and culture that threaten to disappear as our roads become lined with identical chain stores from coast to coast. And it’s a testament to the strength of the individual, and of the community.

I can’t say enough about this book, but you need to take a look inside. You can do that here: The Oxford Project. This would be a very special gift for so many … the photographer, the historian, and anyone who is interested in people. If I didn’t already have my own copy this would be at the very top of my holiday wish list.

The Oxford Project by Peter Feldstein and Stephen G. Bloom
ISBN: 978-1599620480, $50.00

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