The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification [Hardcover]

Julian Montague (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2006

A must-have for anyone with a passion for shopping carts and a love of the great outdoors.

In The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America author Julian Montague has created an elaborate classification system of abandoned shopping carts, accompanied by photographic documentation of actual stray cart sightings. These sightings include bucolically littered locations such as the Niagara River Gorge (where many a cart has been pushed to its untimely death) and mundane settings that look suspiciously like a suburb near you.

Working in the naturalist's tradition, the photographs depict the diversity of the phenomenon and carry a surprising emotional charge; readers inevitably begin to see these carts as human, at times poignant in their abandoned, decrepit state, hilariously incapacitated, or ingeniously co-opted. The result is at once rigorous and absurd, enabling the layperson to identify and classify their own cart spottings based on the situation in which they were found.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Julian Montague is an artist and graphic designer whose various art projects address issues of scientific classification as they relate to our perceptions of the natural and man-made worlds. A graduate of Hampshire College, he lives in Buffalo, New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (May 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810955202
• ISBN-13: 978-0810955202
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #233,801 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

193 of 202 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the top four shopping cart reference guides December 28, 2007

By Mitch

Format:Hardcover

This book is easily one of the top four reference guides for shopping carts available on the market today. It does an excellent job of covering the following topics:

* Shopping carts

Overall, I heartily endorse this product.

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully arcane April 5, 2007

By Rosemary Evetts

Format:Hardcover

There's no bio for the author, but I hope it helped him get tenure! Designed like a birding guide, it is funny beyond belief. Library of Congress classifies it as an "artistic photography" book, but it has a very droll social anthropology feel about it.

56 of 60 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars 'Shoppers...we're gonna get you for doing this to us' UBSC local 501* April 9, 2006

By Robin Benson

Format:Hardcover

Flick through this book and many of you might think Julian Montague needs to get a life, roaming round the North Eastern states snapping the death throes of shopping carts, indeed. The book is a bit of fun though and quite cleverly thought out, but maybe the joke wears a bit thin by page 176.

The five sections explain all you'll need to know to about classifying carts, section two lists Class A: False Strays, Types 1-11 and section three Class B: True Strays, Types 1-22. Each type gets a page with a cool photo and details about what to look for. The longest section is four, titled Selected Specimens, with more than three hundred photos of battered and dead carts in the environment, I think the ones in snow look best and they are categorized according to either Class A or B. It won't surprise you to know that the author toiled for six years creating all this.

The design and printing of the book is fine and the author takes a pretty good cart photo. The only thing missing, I thought, was some reference to their manufactures, there can't be too many and they most likely all have unique features. This would certainly have added to the thrill of spotting a Class B, Type 11 (train damaged cart) made by A N Other Inc.

*United Brotherhood of Shopping Carts. Affiliated to AFL/CIO.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Unfortunately Misinformed March 30, 2011

By A. Flynn

Format:Hardcover

I would love to rate this particular treatise as highly as I did the author's previous works: "Potato Science - An Ethical Discourse" was particularly well written and contained multiple helpful diagrams and bulleted instructions.

Unfortunately, this latest work is disproportionately lacking in quality. The images of the shopping carts are of such a low quality that it is difficult to identify one breed from another. Recently, whilst working in the field, I stumbled across a nest of young carts which I could not easily identify using my guide. It was impossible to tell if they were Walmart Warblers or the less common (and more exciting!) Greater Wheeled Tuckwood. This forced me to get closer than I would normally want to get to these magnificent creatures, and I risked disturbing their habitat.

I was forced to leave the nesting area anyway when the mother cart returned: finding me near to her offspring she became enraged and attacked me, bumping into my ankles quite ferociously. Fortunately I was able to escape with only minor injuries.

If the book had been more clear on the matter of identification I feel I could have avoided the attack, which could have been a vicious mauling. 2/5

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Not for everyone, but great nonetheless. August 4, 2008

By Jeff Kraus TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have to admit, the book got me looking at stray shopping carts in a whole new way! I find myself eying a collection of carts in the corner of a parking lot, considering their classification and wishing I had my camera with me.

I know, it's weird.

Not everyone is going to appreciate this book, or its deadpan, clinical nature. But if you have a weakness for the strange and/or absurd, this will be a great book to have on your coffee table when you have company over. Especially if you have a Petersen's Guide right next to it.

And the front half of a shopping cart mounted like a hunter's trophy over your fireplace.

I wonder if there's a market for those.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Audubon? Peterson? Has-beens! April 15, 2006

By A. J. Fries

Format:Hardcover

One of the most complete and well thought out works I have ever encountered. Montague's language coupled with his beautiful photography give the lowly carts individual personalities. Refreshing, for an art piece, it never takes itself too seriously. It will change the way you look at the urban environment, and most importantly it's endlessly fun.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The definitive reference May 7, 2012

By R. Hirst

Format:Hardcover

As a member Premier Ordre of the Retail Shopping Cart Awareness Association (Henceforth RSCAA), I find the official RSCAA review an affront.
Ethics --yea, friends, that oft-neglected master-- compels me to present for public consideration the Minority Dissenting Opinion on the matter of Montague's field reference.
(Decision 825-4.M)

Namely, its perfection.

The reference is unimpeachable, the quality fine, the photographs apt, the circles round. I have personally hand-checked the reference structure and layout, using official RSCAA guidelines, and can report no deviation from the Brownbook standard.
Calibrated Pantone indexing showed autocorrelation well within required bounds.

Which result no honest RSCAA member shall question, for the RSCAA standard is the MONTAGUE GUIDE ITSELF. Friends, it is so. Such are the dark politics of our day, that we throw into calumny and neglect the very pillar of our belief.

Pursuant to the Code of Good Conduct, my resignation is hereby tendered, all ties cut, dues paid in full, figurines returned, candies forfeited & c.
Ryan Hirst
RSCAA 1er o., Minority Opinion Draftsman, 825-4.M, Unicorn
_____________

Jokes aside.

Good satire is uncommon.
I found this book mesmerizing. Suppose it is a joke. It will never divulge this to you. Hilarious at first, the brilliance of Montague's book takes a bit longer to grasp: it's the camouflage. The categorization system, both in structure and layout, is a miniature introduction to good system modeling and clean graphic design. Tufte would be proud.

And it's hilarious. The photographs of sad, lonely and mauled carts are alone worth the purchase.

One reviewer asks, "has anyone ever bought this book?... It's not a joke when it's a waste of money."

I have. And it isn't. If you can't imagine the satire being good enough to hold your interest, I think that's the best reason to buy it. Give yourself a chance to be disabused. AND to laugh your ass off. This is not an either/or scenario.

Again. Good satire is awfully hard to come by. Read more ›