Book-It 'o12! Book #27
The Fifty Books Challenge, year three! (Years one, two, and three just in case you're curious.) This was a secondhand find.
Title: The Crazy World of Cats by Bill Stott
Details: Copyright 1992, Exley Publications
Synopsis (By Way of Publisher's Overview): "All who have owned, lived with, tolerated, or loved cats, will recognize themselves and the cats they have known in these cartoons. "
Why I Wanted to Read It: This was recommended to me by family member and I'm reading some particularly dry quasi-fiction about the Salem Witch Trials at the moment and decided I could use some light reading. Also, I mistook this author/artist as one I remembered as an illustrator of several books I enjoyed as a kid.
How I Liked It: I love the vintage (and even the not-so-vintage) New Yorker cartoons. I see Bill Kliban's work as art (and I adored it even as a child). This book is not only neither of those things, it's mass-churned (the author/illustrator has several other unrelated "Crazy World of" books under his credit) unfunny, often to the point of non sequitor. Contrary to the publisher's overview, this book doesn't speak to cat lovers/owners, it speaks to the fact the cartoonist did some half-assed research on the subject. He would not be alone, of course: Hallmark and its imitators have been doing the same thing for decades. The only difference is the fact that they more or less strike closer to the "truth" and far closer to "entertaining/funny".
Sometimes you can tell a book by its cover, and this is one is purely disposable (recyclable?).
Notable: For the record, the style the author came close to that I thought I recognized is actually James Stevenson. A closer look at his work as an adult makes me feel slightly shamed to have confused his charm (and credentials, which include The New Yorker) for this hack.
Title: The Crazy World of Cats by Bill Stott
Details: Copyright 1992, Exley Publications
Synopsis (By Way of Publisher's Overview): "All who have owned, lived with, tolerated, or loved cats, will recognize themselves and the cats they have known in these cartoons. "
Why I Wanted to Read It: This was recommended to me by family member and I'm reading some particularly dry quasi-fiction about the Salem Witch Trials at the moment and decided I could use some light reading. Also, I mistook this author/artist as one I remembered as an illustrator of several books I enjoyed as a kid.
How I Liked It: I love the vintage (and even the not-so-vintage) New Yorker cartoons. I see Bill Kliban's work as art (and I adored it even as a child). This book is not only neither of those things, it's mass-churned (the author/illustrator has several other unrelated "Crazy World of" books under his credit) unfunny, often to the point of non sequitor. Contrary to the publisher's overview, this book doesn't speak to cat lovers/owners, it speaks to the fact the cartoonist did some half-assed research on the subject. He would not be alone, of course: Hallmark and its imitators have been doing the same thing for decades. The only difference is the fact that they more or less strike closer to the "truth" and far closer to "entertaining/funny".
Sometimes you can tell a book by its cover, and this is one is purely disposable (recyclable?).
Notable: For the record, the style the author came close to that I thought I recognized is actually James Stevenson. A closer look at his work as an adult makes me feel slightly shamed to have confused his charm (and credentials, which include The New Yorker) for this hack.