Oliver B. Pollak

In his front matter, the author records that, with his book, Nebraska becomes the twentieth state to sport a courthouse book, an interesting and useful fact for the collector. His book is one of the quirkier. To begin with, he makes the poor decision to organize it chronologically instead of by county, thus slowing its use as a reference book and necessitating repetition every time a county replaces its courthouse. The main source for his illustrations, especially early in the book, is postcards, which is fine, but he has an odd fascination with including the messages he finds on the postcard, which are occasionally interesting, usually not. He also is a bit too enthusiastic in rationalizing the cheap, brutalist courthouses which were built in the last half of the twentieth century. He also fails to realize that some of the repetitive information, such as cost, dedication date, and architect, could and should have been simply placed in tables, which is understandable, since I've never seen any of these books which did that either. None of these problems is disqualifying; the courthouses are all there, he's as clear writer, and it's a charming browse.… (meer)