Arty Design for On the Road

“On the Road”

by Jack Kerouac
ISBN 451-Q3517-095
Format: Paperback, 254 pages
Published 1967 – seventeenth printing (first published 1957) by Signet

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1945417.On_the_Road

My next book on the list … review to follow (12th October 2010).

Garp - Front Cover, Corgi 1983 reprint

“The World According to Garp” (Paperback)

by John Irving

ISBN 0-552-1119-02,
Paperback, published 1983 by Corgi
Originally published in 1978 (Victor Gollancz edition)

‘For Colin and Brendan‘. I wonder which random people this book may have been dedicated to, not the publisher’s cleaning lady obviously.

Quite a rare cover, I found only one other image on the ‘Net, over at goodreads.com, who have loads of old editions. It’s not the most exciting cover, but they nearly all have a frog. This one on the right I particularly like, with the idea that Garp is carrying the world on his shoulders. It is a second edition hard-back, signed by Irving, nice.

Alternative front cover

An unforgettable book .. it says. It’s true. A story of Garp, from birth to death, he’s an artist, written by an artist, not autobiographical, but what can you write about but your own experiences. With many stories within the story, it comes back round in circles, while other smaller anecdotes are left to be pondered, and remembered.

It’s a long book, but so recommendable. I read it in October 2010, I wonder why I hadn’t read it before? Maybe it’s Matt’s subtle introduction to American authors to me. Ha.

I’ll write more, if I get motivated again …

Girls at Play, great art work

“Girls at Play”
Paul Theroux
Published in Penguin Books 1983, reprinted 1986
First published by Bodley Head ltd 1969
ISBN 0-14-005495-2

– I read this book in Hong Kong (borrowed from Andre’s extensive library in the apartment) over a weekend. Perhaps I should have been having more fun in Hong Kong, but this book fitted into my pocket and kept me occupied while eating by myself.

Girls at Play, cover by Leslie Howell

The book cover left is not the same as the slightly less intriguing book cover with a horrid lime green cover and spotted gecko (after the game they played I presume) as mine (cover design by Leslie Howell, printed by penguin in 1986).

No doubt it is in the collection because of his more famous ‘The Great Railway Bazaar’, ‘Riding the Iron Rooster’ and so on.

And in that introduction I sum up the book’s best parts; the cover and his other (non-fiction) work. The book is set at a school in East Africa not long after the British Imperial rule has left the country to Independence and explores “the futility of African politics and the disintegration of tribal life.” Read the full description on PaulTheroux.com. There are some chapters with humour and some small sections of suspense, but overall there isn’t any real depth to the story, although the characters are described in quite detail.

Easy to read early work from Paul Theroux, I read it quickly. So it was kind of the airport holiday novel I could’ve have brought to Hong Kong for the weekend.

Book Cover, aiming at teens perhaps

“Or Is That Just Me?”
Richard Hammond
Phoenix Paperback, published 2010
First Published in 2009
ISBN 978-0-7538-2563-1

– I know who Richard Hammond is purely because of Top Gear and that sparingly. So I didn’t know much about him before reading this book and haven’t much of an impression since. The book was given as a birthday present, so end of May 2010, and it took until September with a dearth of other books that I picked it up. If I was writing a review on Amazon or what-have-you I would give it 1/5.

The whole way through I felt the book was a marketing scheme to publish someone who is clearly in the spotlight and could have been written in 100 odd less pages than the 256. The photos in the middle are self-gratifying and overall it is just a book recalling his wonderful and risky trips here and there. There is a loose theme about the worry of reaching 40, but this seems like an afterthought to give the book some reason to be written.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve missed out on the media attention surrounding the guy in the last 10 years or what have you and apart from a few reminiscences of Top Gear filming I had no bond with him, nor the book.

Sorry Phil.