Spring 2019, Wild Readers 5 discussion

The book I chose to read for the nonfiction category was “Eyes of the World: Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, and the Invention of Modern Photojournalism” by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos. I have never read a book (besides textbooks) that is written by more than one author. Aronson and Budhos did a wonderful job of blending both of their writing styles together. I am a huge fan of 1900’s history and everything vintage about it. This was the only book that really struck out to me on the list we were provided with, so I gave it a shot. This book is present tense recount of Robert Capa and Gerda Tapo’s time as photographers. The book setting takes place between 1934 when the two met to three years later when Taro dies. These two were both Jewish immigrants who threw themselves into the Spanish Civil War. Both Capa and Tapo were brave and had open minds. Their photographs opened so many peoples eyes to what war was really like and how we can accomplish such things as photography during that time. Both photographed such things like soldiers, bombed buildings, refugees, and snipers. They changed war reportage forever. The book ends with the authors discussing how in 2007 there was proof that 4,500 photo negatives from Capa and Taro were lost, almost to me sounding like a cliffhanger. This book was not exactly what I expected going into reading it, but was still informational and beneficial to my knowledge. I am just not a huge fan of nonfiction books so this was a tough category for me. But all in all this is a great book for people who are lovers of nonfiction.