New crossbow book.

Have just finished  this book tittle: "A deadly Art" byDirk H Breiding, former  assistant curator in the department "Arms and Armour" in Metropolitan museum.
You find a good historical account about medieval crossbow even if nothing very new. Pictures are interesting, some item depicted are exceptional. But the author is talking of those weapons like art piece, like a scholar would do a description of a canvas, not like a crossbow practiser: He don't really talk about the support but about the art... . He make very breve mention of technical point, you hardly find any close pictures or measurement like Jens Sensfelder book (crossbow in the Netherlands army museum) He refer about him as friend and advisor, to bad he don't let him right the book. I feel a bit frustrated, I see it like a unique lost occasion to enter in this fabulous collection, art is in no point opposed to technique beauty go often with efficiency. It certainly will awake the interest some people not knowing the matter, also the book is cheap witch is one of the good point. But for the more interested Sensfelder,Richter Harmut, paterson Alms and many other are irreplaceable and would be a better choice. Now this is my very personal opinion...

I got a quick look at an advance copy of Dirk Breiding's book a couple of weeks ago.  I did not have much time to look at it, and Dirk kept complaining about how the publisher had screwed up the color balance in a couple of the pics... But from what I could see, it looked like a "must have" book, and I look forward to getting a copy.

It would be nice to have more technical info on the crossbows in the book, but the bottom line is that it is a publication of a prestigious art museum, about objects in their collection.  The guys who control the purse strings are all about Art.  The Met has been pretty slow in publishing their crossbow collection at all.  I am glad to have anything, even if it is not all we could hope for.

Mac

As Mac said, this is not a crossbow book, it's a catalog about Metropolitans crossbow collection. It would have been nice with a bit more info but I think it's nice anywhey.
Nice to see that an article of mine is mentioned, Dahlström 2011!

Crossbows,and crossbow shooting is,unfortunately,a minority interest.Even though it is a minority interest,in my opinion the amount of literature available is inexcusably small.There are many books out there on gunsmithing,and guns,how many on crossbows,and crossbow building?.If it was'nt for websites like ours,crossbows,and crossbow building would likely die a slow death.As with everything else in life nowadays,it's all about supply and demand.
                                               Hermit.