Some Random Observations...

..upon reading the most recent issue of the Guardian's Review of Books.

This is a cool cover image, and an interesting-looking book: Bears: a Brief History, by Bernd Brunner (bonus points for the alliteration!).


I like it, even though in any bear-versus-human encounter, my sympathies are invariably with the bear. I'm not sure of the cartoon's origins, so if anyone can enlighten me...

Paul Beatty's Slumberland is a novel about hip-hop and jazz, starting in 1989. Contrast this lovely cover for the Harvill UK edition...


..with this dull Bloomsbury US edition.


Then we have Jose Luis de Juan's thrillery This Breathing World. It actually took me a while to figure out this cover photo: at first I thought the man in the foreground was melting like a candle from the waist down.


The image, which is rather a cool one, is by Russian photographer Boris Ignatovich (1899-1976), entitled 'Baths'.


Here's another of his startling shots, 'Near the Hermitage'.


Finally, the Guardian had an online exhibition of old Mills and Boon covers. Here are a few of the best/funniest.






Could there be a more quintessentially 1950s England title than Mystery at Butlin's?