Jonathan Bender (1)

Holy cow, was this a wondrous find for me! Talk about reliving your childhood dreams of building! The premise behind this book does for the reader exactly what it did for the author: it makes you want to pull out your old Lego sets and start creating again!

There is more to Lego than stacking bricks together and this book has it all. The author visits where Lego bricks are made, travels to conventions and the Toy and Plastic Brick Museum, and talks with other Adult Fans of Lego (AFOLs), all while documenting his own journey into the rediscovery of being an AFOL himself and taking his readers along for the ride. I always thought of myself as a casual builder who was somewhat interested in the toy, but this book had me turning pages faster than I have ever turned pages and left me wondering if I am really a serious fan at heart. I suddenly wanted to start building with any set I could get my hands on, so beware! Collecting Lego sets is an expensive passtime, as this book clearly states in the examples of AFOLs that the author visits with.

There is a secondary story wrapped up in all of this Lego learning, which is about the author himself. It is partly his rediscovery of building and his acceptance of allowing himself to become part of the Lego fandom and partly his desire to bring his renewed love of bricks to a future child. This format made reading even more enjoyable. There were times I actually felt as if I were experiencing the pressure of my first building contest at a convention or seeing a museum piece for the first time. The storytelling gave the fact finding aspect a purpose within the work of exploration and by the end I felt as if I had actually parted with a friend. You may not be an AFOL when you start reading this book, but you will be a lot closer to it once you finish.… (mehr)

Like most kids in the US, I had LEGO bricks. I would spend whole weekends designing elaborate houses and scenes, just to tear it down and start again. Jonathan Bender’s LEGO: A Love Story captures the same energy and glee that children first have when playing with LEGO. His re-introduction to the world of toy brickwork follows the same pattern of most current-day AFOLs (adult fans of LEGO), with the discovery of a long-forgotten bin of bricks. You can’t help but play with them once found. Most adults who build with LEGO bricks have a period when they’ve put them away but never got rid of them. Now, with wholesalers of individual pieces, collector’s sets, and conventions devoted to LEGO products, the company has made an interesting resurgence.

At first, you think the book’s going to be just another tale of a guy experiencing an existential crisis and finding solace in the toys of his past, but he sidesteps the cliché and finds real meaning and also a lot fun through LEGO. It’s a sweet tale. He parallels this recapturing of his youth with the ups and downs of trying to conceive a child with his wife. There is a gentle interplay of maturity and childlike glee over LEGO. This book reminded me a lot of David Ewalt’s Of Dice and Men in that the author starts with a hobby and quickly delves into the history, nuance, and community behind a single product. Every community has its elements of contention, and the AFOLs are no different. There are battles over superior designs, issues of purity (don’t mention MEGA bloks to a LEGO fan), and opinions over the direction of LEGO Group.

If you’ve played with LEGO, this book will conjure up memories faster than Proust’s madeleines. With every set he mentioned, I found myself tromping through Amazon to find out more about it (don’t worry—I didn’t get any). Luckily, my nephews are just about at LEGO age, so I see a large collection in their future. Bender’s enthusiasm for his subject as well as his honesty make this one a pleasure to read. I heartily recommend it.… (mehr)