Museum of Lost Wonder | 
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| Author: Jeff Hoke
Publisher: Weiser Books
Category: Book
List Price: $49.95
Buy New: $17.40
You Save: $32.55 (65%)
New (4) Used (8) from $10.89
Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 961489
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 159
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.8
Dimensions (in): 8.7 x 8.5 x 1.3
Dewey Decimal Number: 001
ASIN: B0013JD9G4
Publication Date: August 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Jeff Hoke has created a history of the human imagination with visual cues and clues and wonderment about and around everything you ever thought and everything you wish you'd been crafty enough to think. He has built a museum accessible to all, in book format, arranged with 7 halls (representing the seven stages of alchemical process) in which the questions of the universe unfold. All one needs to enter is some basic understanding of the human experience. Hoke begins with The Calcinatio Hall where the featured exhibit is The Beginning of Everything and leads us into halls like The Sublimatio Hall, with the exhibit How To Have Visions. In The Separatio Hall the exhibit Where Are You Going challenges us in our own journey. Through each hall we are led into an exhibit that questions our own understanding of life and urges us into new ways of thinking. As in wandering the great, immense halls of an ancient museum with endless corridors and fascinating exhibits, the reader is instantly pulled into this enormously imaginative pursuit. Each page is full of depth and questions. And each hall features a special fold-out interactive page. The Museum of Lost Wonder is a ray of hope in a dreary world. It is an oasis in an age when we are inundated everywhere we go with messages of consumption and materialism. It is an invitation into the imagination of a brilliant artist as well as a welcome back into your own imagination. It is a call to challenge your mind and your mind's eye to re-assess what you believe to be true and what you know to be true. Once you enter the museum, there is no turning back. For the price of admission you get a whole new perspective on the meaning of life and your purpose in it.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
Wonderful Book for Stretching Your Mind April 17, 2008
C. M. Nelson (Western Washington, USA)
I love the design and graphical, artistic qualities of this book. I have 3 copies - 1 to remain shrink-wrapped, 1 to build the models and 1 to read as a whole. br /The approach to each domain in the book is unique, entertaining and informative. I love the tidbits of information and the exercises. As a paper model builder, I enjoy the quality of the models also.
Like Thomas Pynchon meets R. Crumb on LSD November 27, 2007
Lev Osherovich (San Francisco, CA USA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I have waded in and out of "Museum of Lost Wonder" several times and am stunned by its density of interesting and amusing ideas. This book flits about from one idea/tone/literary genre to another with almost unbearable frequency, and is thus very hard to pin down. Within the parody of the museum guidebook, there are highly-detailed but bizarre diagrams, visual and verbal puns, clever symmetries and other gems to reward the careful reader. Destined to be a cult classic on par with the Dr. Bronner's Magical Soap label... I'm getting copies for EVERYONE I know.
Mysteries Magazine review October 28, 2007
Kim Guarnaccia (Surry, NH)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The Museum of Lost Wonder is a pop-up book for adults, a Maurice Sendak cartoon narrative for grown-ups. The text contains an eclectic blend of philosophical tidbits, scientific factoids, history, alchemy, New Age musings on dream states, visions and hypnosis, Tibetan Buddhism, and quantum physics, all presented in the form of enchanting illustrations and gorgeous artwork. br / br /Author Jeff Hoke, senior exhibit designer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, CA, and an award-winning creator of museum exhibits, was inspired by the eclectic museums and curiosity cabinets of the 1600s. As such, The Museum of Lost Wonder is constructed as a storehouse for arcane bits of knowledge. Despite the grandiose claims of self-discovery, going through the book is like wandering through a funhouse. The seven "exhibit halls" (i.e., chapters) begin with "The Hall of Technology," whose ambitious exhibit is entitled, "The Beginning of Everything." The other exhibit halls have similarly provocative "exhibits," with titles such as "Who Are You?" and "What Is Reality?" br / br /Each hall includes a fold-out, do-it-yourself model that is reminiscent of an Escher painting or a Rube Goldberg creation, with such titles as "Path of Destiny Peep Show" or the "Carousel of Life." The reader is instructed to cut the paper to build the models, but I was reluctant to do so because it would destroy the integrity of this gorgeous book. br / br /At nearly $50, this book may out-price itself for what it delivers in terms of mystical wisdom or esoteric knowledge. But it is a marvelously beautiful piece of work, the top of the line in the tradition of the coffee table book. The Museum of Lost Wonder is well worth the time spent browsing through it--and its expensive cover price. br /Mysteries Magazine
Museum of Lost Wonder July 18, 2007
Dr. Tami Brady (Calgary, Canada)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
br / br /What do you think of when you hear the word museum? Do you see glass encased exhibits with little tags of text beside various artifacts? Can you hear someone complaining about the loud whispers that can be heard? Can you feel the boredom setting in? br / br /The Museum of Lost Wonder is an example of a completely different kind of museum. The pages of this book lead the reader on a journey of exploration and freedom of thought. Instead of stuffy scientific displays, this museum encourages the visitor to wonder and ask all of those questions that they always wanted to ask but thought they'd sound foolish or be glared at for even coming up with the idea. br / br /This book is divided into eight alchemy themed exhibit halls: Calinatio (technology), Solutio (aquaria), Coagulatio (zoological), Sublimatio (observatory), Mortificatio (history), Separatio (science and faith), Conjunctio (arts), and Circulatio (the entrance and exit). Within each of these sections readers explore scientific, mythological, spiritual, and fantastic renditions that explain our world. Many of the exercises encourage visitors to use their creativity to come up with alternative explanations, to explore their own questions, to try various experiments, and to construct models of the various exhibit halls.
Unleashes something between strange and wonderful February 7, 2007
W. Graney (Collegeville, PA USA)
I'm not sure what this book set out to do, but it certainly fires up the imagination of anyone who looks at it. The drawings and constructions are masterful, the little experiments and mental expeditions are thought provoking and the organization is absolutely indecipherable. If you have a brain and it could use a little exercise, get this book.
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