Bookshipper

• Title: Imagining Anne
• Author: Dr. B. Epperly
• Release Date: Available in stores now
• Genre: Coffee Table
• Rating: 3 stars (average)

I am a huge Lucy Maud Montgomery fan and have read anything I can find on this author. Dr. Epperly, the author of this book is without a doubt a leading authority on LMM. While I appreciate the thought behind this book, I just did not think that it translated all that well to paper. I thought that by reading this book, I would get into Maud's world - understand her more - be able to live through Maud's view of her life. This was not the case. While this book is absolutely beautiful to look at, there is too much to look at and some of it is almost impossible to read (especially most of the newspaper clippings which, when transferred from the original lost much of their sharpness). I think the basic problem is that you open a page and get assaulted by a multitude of colors, words and pictures - there is too much to see and because some of it is so blurry, it is impossible to make any kind of sens out of everything. Yes, Dr. Epperly does attempts to explain some of the contents, but unfortunately, because there is so much on one page, she sometimes skips over some of it, or will give the briefest of explanations. Also, although LMM kept these scrapbooks over the course of her life - surprisingly, there is a note of generality to the scrapbooks, for some reason, I felt as though the contents seem to touch LMM very little in some ways! There was a lack of personal feeling throught the book. I found this in her Journals as well. It has been documented that LMM, once she got famous, went back to her Journals and removed or amended certain things that she felt may have been too personal - she basically edited her own journals for the general public to see one day! I suspect she may have done this with the scrapbooks - which leaves us with a very frustrating and incomplete picture of LMM (but one that I suspect she wants us to see). I think this book would have worked better with Dr. Epperly picking a few key items from the scrapbooks and explaining them in more detail - instead of simply reproducing the whole thing and then trying to play catch up. If you want to buy this because it is a beautiful coffee table book - then do it - however, if you are looking for insight on LMM - skip it.