Boring Postcards

Rating:
Summary: Tragic
Review: A strange, alien experience, 'Boring Postcards' is quite literally a set of boring postcards. In a book. Although it's the kind of thing you buy expecting it to be kitsch it's actually deeply affecting - taken at a time when Britain was rebuilding itself after WWII, and 'Dan Dare' from 'Eagle' proposed a future in which Britain ruled space, the concrete buildings, motorways and civic centres are almost heartbreakingly sad nowadays - the equivalent of the bull ring market in Birmingham. If this book was an object it would be one of those tomato-shaped squeezy ketchup dispensers, or a faded yellow plastic school chair.

Rating:
Summary: Tragic
Review: A strange, alien experience, 'Boring Postcards' is quite literally a set of boring postcards. In a book. Although it's the kind of thing you buy expecting it to be kitsch it's actually deeply affecting - taken at a time when Britain was rebuilding itself after WWII, and 'Dan Dare' from 'Eagle' proposed a future in which Britain ruled space, the concrete buildings, motorways and civic centres are almost heartbreakingly sad nowadays - the equivalent of the bull ring market in Birmingham. If this book was an object it would be one of those tomato-shaped squeezy ketchup dispensers, or a faded yellow plastic school chair.

Rating:
Summary: Hilarious and kind of sad
Review: Anyone interested in bad,sterile,depressing and bland architecture need look no further.This book provides perfect examples in how NOT to design living spaces and aestetically pleasing public landscapes and public buildings.The book easily could have been titled "How not to Feng Shui".What really strikes you as you glance over the whole of the motel,trailerpark and assorted public buildings is an overwhelming blandness,mismatching and tacky colors,stark,bleak and monotonous nothingness that envelops these cheap and thoughtless artifacts of a thankfully bygone era.A great sociological book could be written on why the general whole of the western world lost so much of its sense of aesthetic beauty in the 20th century and made books like this possible.Is it that 20th century man lost all higher hopes and feeling for beauty and that the horrors of the century can be reflected in the strictly utilitarian architecture that dominated the century?Or is it that the almost exclusively materialistic mindset of 20th century man dictated that his environments reflect his inner state?Pore over this book and draw your own conclusions.

Rating:
Summary: Boring, yes; yet strangely moving, too!!
Review: I just love this collection of postcards - they are truly mind-numbing, and as I was leafing through the book, my over-riding thought was WHY??? Why on earth would anyone take a picture of the National Giro Centre, Bootle, Preston Bus Station, numerous Forte motorway restaurants and the Bull Ring centre? Perhaps these buildings and roads were something to be proud of when they were built - a brave new post-war Britain. I can see the point of a few of them, but some are just mind-numbingly boring and just plain odd. The oddest, in fact, is Basingstoke. Three pictures in one postcard, all showing the same view of construction work on a pedestrian precinct.
Ahhh - the pedestrian precinct!! How 60's is THAT!!!!!

A great book to have around and a great conversation starter.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, if you are open to it
Review: I would agree with some of the previous reviewers. I love this book. I keep it on my coffee table and look at it when I'm bored. Many people would look at it and think its completely pointless. After all, these postcards are exactly the type of thing my wife keeps trying to throw away because they're "junk." I don't think they are junk. Taken together, these pictures might say something about society, history or something of that nature. I say, "who cares?" I just think they're plain funny. Pictures of shopping malls and 60's hotel lounges - all entertaining. Some of the funniest ones are of some guy's body shop on an ugly lot somewhere in wherever, but it says, "Ray's Body Shop" proudly at the top of the card. If you like visual stimulation of any kind, you'll like this book.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, if you are open to it
Review: I would agree with some of the previous reviewers. I love this book. I keep it on my coffee table and look at it when I'm bored. Many people would look at it and think its completely pointless. After all, these postcards are exactly the type of thing my wife keeps trying to throw away because they're "junk." I don't think they are junk. Taken together, these pictures might say something about society, history or something of that nature. I say, "who cares?" I just think they're plain funny. Pictures of shopping malls and 60's hotel lounges - all entertaining. Some of the funniest ones are of some guy's body shop on an ugly lot somewhere in wherever, but it says, "Ray's Body Shop" proudly at the top of the card. If you like visual stimulation of any kind, you'll like this book.

Rating:
Summary: better than the title suggests!
Review: Martin Parr has done it again in his depiction of the world as it really is rather than how we want it to be. Whilst found art rather than his own masterpieces the banality of the work is remarkeable. Can't wait to visit old blighty again to see the Preston bus garage and the other Real sights of Britain.Touchingly nostalgic.

Rating:
Summary: A cure for snobbish Anglophiles
Review: These old postcards show prime examples of mid-20th Century blandification in Britain, from boxy-looking schools to boxy-looking malls (both centers of societal indoctrination, by the way, so why NOT the similar architecture?); from sterile-looking hotels filled with queasy-looking bourgeoisie to sterile-looking trailer parks filled with queasier-looking bourgeoisie (but then, almost all the people on these cards wear the same queasy, desperately-having-normal-fun expressions). Anyone interested in spooky, utilitarian environments, and how the bourgeoisie try convincing themselves and others to enjoy these environments, will find this book interesting. However, how many people, especially Americans, even notice their characterless surroundings anymore? This book's point might be lost on readers inured from birth to characterlessness.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding and unique
Review: This book deserves to be a part of everyones livingroom decor. It's an odd group of Holiday camps, Turnpikes, and 1950's/1960's architecture. Two are even anotated with "my caravan, etc.". A number of guests that have come to my house have spent minutes going over page after page, commenting on each card. Well worth the price.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding and unique
Review: This book deserves to be a part of everyones livingroom decor. It's an odd group of Holiday camps, Turnpikes, and 1950's/1960's architecture. Two are even anotated with "my caravan, etc.". A number of guests that have come to my house have spent minutes going over page after page, commenting on each card. Well worth the price.