Tower: Faith, Vertigo, and Amateur Construction

Inspiring meditations on the human drive to build skyward, from a man who did it himself

"There are hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny towers to appreciate. You remember how as a child you made them out of sand or blocks or tin cans . . . Two inches or 3,000 feet, the size of the tower is of no importance. All are mere pebbles on the earth's surface. It is the tall imagination that counts, in this book at least."

Tower is Bill Henderson's winning personal account of erecting, by hand and almost entirely on his own, a wooden tower on a plot of land in Maine. For Henderson, constructing the edifice--which he resolutely declares to have "no purpose," religious or utilitarian--is an exercise in faith and self-reliance. Henderson guides us through the details of design and construction with clear illustrations and with humor, often digressing to contemplate the various towers of Yeats, Joyce, Sam Rodia, and Gustave Eiffel. The finished result is not only Henderson's completed tower, in which we share an inspiring sense of accomplishment, but a revelatory insight into what motivates the builders and thinkers who precede our own efforts to gain a higher viewpoint.