“The Book of Takes is a personal account of the process of extracting art from life. The external storyline, the biography, is marked by the titles within the take signs. The nursery rhymes, songs, card games, etc., are metaphors for the experience of being. The central question is of the ever-present wall: What is it? How is it confronted? Does one overcome it?

"The Book of Takes is a chapter of a larger work called Jericho. It is a book within a book. The form is new. The pictures are not appendages to, or illustrations of the words. The visual structure and the verbal structure are to be read together. The book is most often read in columns, vertically, from page to page. It can also be read horizontally and, in the case of the card game, diagonally and in a circle. I would suggest that the reader let the work take him, at least on the first reading. Like all poetry, it is meant to be read many times. Pick sections out and savour them separately.

"At the back of the book is the Jericho map. At various points in the reading, you can locate yourself on it. It confirms the reader's physical existence inside the geography of Jericho. This chapter takes place largely, but not exclusively, in the lower part of Sinai.

The Book of Takes is highly condensed. It is constructed of the inter-relationships and reverberations of idea, language, space, and time."—Lynn Hurwitz Zelevansky