Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Signspotting 2 : The World's Most Absurd Signs (Lonely Planet Signspotting) (No. 2)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I picked this book up on a whim after reading a few pages, and it was well worth buying. It's a collection of laugh-out-loud funny signs from around the world. Each sign is accompanied by a humorous remark. Some are poor translations, others are funny taken out of context, and others are just ironic or ridiculous.
I found it so amusing, I bought the first in the series, and took them with me while visiting family for Thanskgiving. Leaving them on the coffee table, folks of all ages (teens, parents of young kids and grandparents) picked them up over the course of several days, reading them to one another and laughing out loud.
I like "Signspotting 2" slightly better than the first, "Signspotting" only because the photos are better quality/resolution, but both are great reads.

Lonely Planet Signspotting (Lonely Planet Pictorial)

This would be a great gift for anyone in the hospital, recovering at home or a gift for that person "that has everything!" These signs are REAL, the photographers who spotted these signs and took the time to back up, dig out the camera, snap the picture and email it to Doug Lansky, deserve much credit!!

Doug Lansky is a great guy to put it all together, so we can sit and laugh our fool heads off!! A GREAT GIFT BOOK FOR ANYONE!!

Yeah, the picture I submitted to Doug is also in the book (shame shame!)
Seriously, this is a very funny book!!
S.M. from Elk Grove, CA

Lots of material here. I loved this book and it makes me wish I had taken more sign pictures while I was overseas. Definitely good for a laugh!

Lonely Planet Signspotting 2 : The World's Most Absurd Signs (Lonely Planet Signspotting) A gift for the person who has everything. Both of the sign spotting books by this author are fun, amusing and inclined to have readers looking for their own funny signs as they travel. These books are good for passing around or even "regifting" (if you are willing to give them up).

Both of the Signspotting books are bust out loud funny. The second one if anything is even more histerical than the first one. These are must haves.

I am overweight and uni-languagal (not even a word), just like the rest of us americans. Therefore, I find books like "Signspotting 2" hilarious. I mean, "Be Aware of Invisibility"? That's great stuff. Not only is it incorrect English, but it gives you the idea that, "Hey, maybe in some country somewhere I can become invisible." My 14-year-old daughter and I read this book and the first Signspotting book together and laughed until our heads hurt. It was great bonding stuff for an overworked mom and her "I'm always right" teenage daughter. I recommend it highly.

Knowing my love of unintentionally humorous signs, newspaper headlines, and so on, my wife bought me a copy of Doug Lansky's Signspotting 2 when it first came out several years ago. It is absolutely one of the most sidesplitting collections of photographs and brief captions I've ever seen. Be aware that some of the humor that comes through is a tad racy, but, frankly, that's part of the fun. One of the things that is so fascinating about Lansky's collection is that while some of the humor in the signs clearly is the result of misguided translation into English by non-English speakers, some of these signs come from the USA, the UK, Australia, and other English-speaking countries. Some of the signs are funny because they are pictured out of context (e.g. a sign that says "Entrance Only...Do Not Enter"), some are funny because of the quirky connotations that result from the specific idioms of various forms of English around the world, but most are funny because someone, somewhere either didn't know the English language particularly well, or just plain didn't think about the ramifications of what they named their business or how they juxtaposed words on their signs. It's a hoot and highly recommended for adults!

This was a great idea for book that was very poorly done in the original book. When I first opened this sequel and came across the lion picture with arrow sign and no dumping $50 000 fine sign, I feared this book would be filled with the same low quality and mostly unhumorous signage of the original sign spotting book. Thankfully they seem to have used up the average stuff in that first book and this one's first two pages. No doubt after the first one came out, backpackers everywhere flooded Lonely Planet's publishers with their own better quality and funnier signs from their travels. There's some extremely funny signs in this sequel, most are a poor translation into English from the original language, some just have messages for multiple things together on the one sign, that when read as one sentence mean something totally else.

The book still could be improved by having better information such as a street address to where these signs actually are so travellers can find them and check them out for themselves.

Forget the first book and get this sequel instead!

I hate to say it, but I'm old enough to remember passing Burma Shave signs and reading them aloud with delight on long, boring car trips.
This series of books (this is #2 of three)is wayyy more fun because it is a collection of accidental nonsense.
I frequently hand one of these books to someone who has dropped in, and the visit results in us sharing the signs out loud and roaring in laughter.
My grandkids especially love them, but then so do my (more or less) adult friends, too.

Of the three, or at least the first three, this is the best. Just got done flipping through it, and these are hilarious. What's not to love about unintentionally funny translations, location names, etc.? Another coffee table book, for when you have company and there is maybe that irregular awkward time where you run out of things to talk about.