Customer Reviews

Boring Postcards

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This coffee-table book of boring postcards is a collection of the tackiest and most boring postcards imaginable. It is wonderfully campy and sure to provide a good laugh.

By the way, I read the previous "1-Star" review, and it is hard to believe that any person with an ounce of common sense would think they are actually buying a book of real postcards that they could tear out and mail to friends!

This collection of utterly horrendous postcards is a delightful window into our past and what people valued in days gone by. Certainly in retrospect it is hard to grasp what on earth the people who made these postcards, and more importantly the people who bought and sent them were thinking, but at the time they all made sense to somebody.

Most of these cards are from 1960's and 1970's Britain; I recommend the companion volume "Boring Postcards USA" for a similar look at US postal proclivities in the same eras. Some of the themes of the book are over-represented (highway interchanges chief among them), but I found the postcards of motels, campgrounds, and public areas to be charming though horrifying.

Among my favorite cards in this volume are such greats as "NUL. 30F. M.6. Motorway. Newcastle-under-Lyme.", "Interior of the Mersey Tunnel, Liverpool", "The Drive In Bottle Shop, Northampton", "The Butts Shopping Center, Reading", "Farnham Post Office", "Canteen, Stoke Mandeville Hospital" (a truly ghastly realm of colors), "National Giro Centre, Bootle" (an amazingly postcard that has actually been postmarked!), "A corner of the Moota Motel, Cockermouth", "The Garreg Goch Caravan Park, Morfa Bychan" (the saddest trailer court I have ever seen), and perhaps my favorite of all, "Rain Clouds, from Southend Pier", a bad photo of some clouds in beautiful black and white.

Truly, this is a great collection that simultaneously made me amused and sentimental. I only wish that I could detach and send these postcards, as I know several people who would be delighted to get a card of "Turbine Hall, CEGB Wylfa Nuclear Power Station, Anglesey."

This collection of utterly horrendous postcards is a delightful window into our past and what people valued in days gone by. Certainly in retrospect it is hard to grasp what on earth the people who made these postcards, and more importantly the people who bought and sent them were thinking, but at the time they all made sense to somebody.

Most of these cards are from 1960's and 1970's Britain; I recommend the companion volume "Boring Postcards USA" for a similar look at US postal proclivities in the same eras. Some of the themes of the book are over-represented (highway interchanges chief among them), but I found the postcards of motels, campgrounds, and public areas to be charming though horrifying.

Among my favorite cards in this volume are such greats as "NUL. 30F. M.6. Motorway. Newcastle-under-Lyme.", "Interior of the Mersey Tunnel, Liverpool", "The Drive In Bottle Shop, Northampton", "The Butts Shopping Center, Reading", "Farnham Post Office", "Canteen, Stoke Mandeville Hospital" (a truly ghastly realm of colors), "National Giro Centre, Bootle" (an amazingly postcard that has actually been postmarked!), "A corner of the Moota Motel, Cockermouth", "The Garreg Goch Caravan Park, Morfa Bychan" (the saddest trailer court I have ever seen), and perhaps my favorite of all, "Rain Clouds, from Southend Pier", a bad photo of some clouds in beautiful black and white.

Truly, this is a great collection that simultaneously made me amused and sentimental. I only wish that I could detach and send these postcards, as I know several people who would be delighted to get a card of "Turbine Hall, CEGB Wylfa Nuclear Power Station, Anglesey."

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.