Customer Reviews

Lost: Lost and Found Pet Posters from Around the World

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

 

 

This fabulous, funny, poignant book is a compendium of lost pet posters -- homemade and heartfelt -- collected from around the world. Pets are depicted in everything from old photos (my favorite is the picture of "Pudding," a rotund and grouchy-looking cat) to children's scratchy drawings, and you will fall in love with every one of these poor misplaced animals and their ever-hopeful owners. They range from the strangely strident (witness the fellow who has produced a poster announcing he has found a Siamese cat, but will only return it if the owner can produce five forms of I.D.) to the hysterically funny (often unintentionally -- like that very same Siamese-finder). Ian Phillips has put together a charming, whimsical little book, and it would make a completely brilliant gift for any pet lover on your list.

I love his work and collecting these pet posters is a stroke of genius. Anyone who's ever had a pet and who has had to write one of these posters will be blinking back tears of sympathy, even if you acknowledge the ugliness of other people's pets, for some here are real lollapoloozas. Mostly you take your hat off to the eternal virtue of hope, for some of these people have faith deeper than rivers if they believe that you'd be able to recognize their cat or dog from the miserably scanned old photo of the animal, sometimes off in a corner of a photo looking completely anonymous or so dark you can't tell what you're supposed to be looking at. The texts Phillips collects are as heartbreaking as the photos, and again for every clearcut description of an animal, there's quite a few in which it's like the old parable of the blind man and the elephant

As you pore through this book you can only hope all of these owners found their pets in this world and if not in this world, maybe in the next. LOST is a postmodern assemblage with old fashioned heart and soul, it looks good and it feels good too.

In a brief introduction, Toronto-based illustrator and designer Ian Phillips tells us he began collecting lost pet posters when he lived in Switzerland and his roommate's cat ran away. Posters are separated into Dogs, Cats, Birds and Others; the latter category includes rabbits, cows, hamsters, rats, snakes and ferrets. Posters range from those drawn by children to those displaying sophisticated wit and/or design, and represent fugitives in the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Europe, Japan and Africa. Each entry is on one page that shows the poster with the location identified beneath it. Facing pages make a flip drawing of pets walking across the page, and the book concludes with the author's Missing Pet Poster Tips and some factoids.

The book is more interesting in premise than selection, I thought. Some were poignant but many were not. Still, I'm glad I got this -- the picture of dour cat "Pudding" is almost worth getting the book by itself! -- and it would make a fun gift for pet lovers you know.

This fabulous, funny, poignant book is a compendium of lost pet posters -- homemade and heartfelt -- collected from around the world. Pets are depicted in everything from old photos (my favorite is the picture of "Pudding," a rotund and grouchy-looking cat) to children's scratchy drawings, and you will fall in love with every one of these poor misplaced animals and their ever-hopeful owners. They range from the strangely strident (witness the fellow who has produced a poster announcing he has found a Siamese cat, but will only return it if the owner can produce five forms of I.D.) to the hysterically funny (often unintentionally -- like that very same Siamese-finder). Ian Phillips has put together a charming, whimsical little book, and it would make a completely brilliant gift for any pet lover on your list.

Interesting idea, i did enjoy the book but some of the posters were really boring and very rigid. I think if you are making this as an entertaining book, try to include mostly extraordinary postings. Over wise it will look like an archive for people "who study the case".

Lost is one of my favorite books of the year and one of my favorite illustrated book of all time. The combination of brilliant illustrations, fantastic design and real heart make this a true gem. I read it from cover to cover and wept all the way through. There is just so much poignancy here--so much said in so few words about the bond between people and their animals. You couldn't find a better gift for an animal-lover.

The book in terms of images is lovely, there are many smart, funny, and cute posters all by average people who simply want their pets home safely. That's what makes the book bitter sweet, one is left wondering how many were never found. Interesting, but sad at times.

This book is a collection of the cutest animals from all over the world. It's very interesting and funny to read. It's a great book for pet animal lovers who know what it's like to lose their best friends. Please read.

This book makes a fine gift for those with a quirky sense of humor or who appreciate found objects/art. The collection of posters has an interesting variety, but some of the posters lack the same interest and obscurity of others. The foreign posters are certainly worth a laugh. The concept of the book is very funny, but as other reviewers have mentioned, it would have been a more successful book if the tone of the more creative and funny posters was carried throughout the entire book.

I liked the idea of this book very much. However, the quality of the posters was a let-down. I don't know what the original quality was, but it looks just like a photo-copied group of posters thrown together. If all the originals were in black and white, then the quality is okay. If, however, some of the original posters were in colour, they should have been so reproduced for this book.