Martin Parr is a key figure in the world of photography and contemporary art. Some accuse him of cruelty, but many more appreciate the wit and irony with which he tackles such subjects as bad taste, food, the tourist, shopping and the foibles of the British. Parr has been collecting postcards for 20 years, and here is the cream of his collection - his boring postcards. With no introduction or commentary of any kind, Parr's boring postcards are reproduced straight. They are exactly what they say they are, namely boring picture postcards showing boring photographs of boring places, presumably for boring people to buy to send to their boring friends. All of them are shot in Britain, taking us on a boring tour of its motorways, ring roads, traffic interchanges, bus stations, pedestrian precincts, factories, housing estates, airports, caravan sites, convalescent homes and shopping centres. Some attempt to idealize their subjects, only to fail dismally. Others lack any apparent purpose or interest, but the resultant collection of photographic images is wholly compelling. Boring Postcardsis multi-layered: a commentary on British architecture, social life and identity, a record of a folk photography which is today being appropriated by the most fashionable photographers (including Parr), an exercise in sublime minimalism and, above all, a richly comic photographic entertainment.

With Boring Postcards from Italy, COLL.EO has collected more than one hundred of the most boring images from Forza Horizon 2 to produce a book that, in sharp contrast to the title, fascinates and surprises. Boring Postcards from Italy redefined the relationship between reality and simulation with "postcards" that are "boring" both in content and composition. The project is an appropriation and homage to Martins Parr's seminal Boring Postcards series: a commentary on videogame architecture, tourism and simulation, photography and representation. It is, above all, a provocation. Text in English.

Beloved novelist Marcia Willett continues to captivate readers with her inspiring novels about family, friendship, and love. In Postcards from the Past Siblings Billa and Ed share their beautiful, grand old childhood home in rural Cornwall. With family and friends nearby, and their living arrangements free and easy, they seem as contented as they can be. But when postcards start arriving from a sinister figure they thought belonged well and truly in their pasts, old memories are stirred. Why is he contacting them now? And what has he been hiding all these years?

Equal parts mail art, data visualization, and affectionate correspondence, Dear Data celebrates "the infinitesimal, incomplete, imperfect, yet exquisitely human details of life," in the words of Maria Popova (Brain Pickings), who introduces this charming and graphically powerful book. For one year, Giorgia Lupi, an Italian living in New York, and Stefanie Posavec, an American in London, mapped the particulars of their daily lives as a series of hand-drawn postcards they exchanged via mail weekly—small portraits as full of emotion as they are data, both mundane and magical. Dear Data reproduces in pinpoint detail the full year's set of cards, front and back, providing a remarkable portrait of two artists connected by their attention to the details of their lives—including complaints, distractions, phone addictions, physical contact, and desires. These details illuminate the lives of two remarkable young women and also inspire us to map our own lives, including specific suggestions on what data to draw and how. A captivating and unique book for designers, artists, correspondents, friends, and lovers everywhere.

** THE NEW YORK TIMES-BESTSELLING CULT CLASSIC NOVEL ** ** In a new edition introduced by Stephen Fry ** ‘I don’t think you can even call this a drug. This is just a response to the conditions we live in.’ Suzanne Vale, formerly acclaimed actress, is in rehab, feeling like ‘something on the bottom of someone’s shoe, and not even someone interesting’. Immersed in the sometimes harrowing, often hilarious goings-on of the drug hospital and wondering how she’ll cope – and find work – back on the outside, she meets new patient Alex. Ambitious, good-looking in a Heathcliffish way and in the grip of a monumental addiction, he makes Suzanne realize that, however eccentric her life might seem, there’s always someone who’s even closer to the edge of reason. Carrie Fisher’s bestselling debut novel is an uproarious commentary on Hollywood – the home of success, sex and insecurity – and has become a beloved cult classic. ‘This novel, with its energy, bounce and generous delivery of a loud laugh on almost every page, stands as a declaration of war on two fronts: on normal and on unhappy’ STEPHEN FRY ‘A single woman’s answer to Nora Ephron’s Heartburn . . . the smart successor to Joan Didion’s Play It as It Lays’ Los Angeles Times ‘A cult classic . . . A wonderfully funny, brash and biting novel’ Washington Post 'A wickedly shrewd black-humor riff on the horrors of rehab and the hollows of Hollywood life' People 'Searingly funny' Vogue

A New York Times Best Illustrated Book of 2019 Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year The Boring Book is a humorous picture book that follows the story of one particularly bored boy. As the story progresses, our protagonist discovers there's actually more to boredom than what meets the eye—more questions, more theories, and heaps of humor. This exploration of boredom from acclaimed author-illustrator Shinsuke Yoshitake playfully—and hilariously—unpacks the ways in which a seemingly stagnant state is actually a portal into a dynamic, life-enriching experience. • Embraces the topic of boredom—an ever-so-popular kid complaint—and runs with it • The unique comic format, fast pace, smart humor, and narrative approach makes it ideal for reluctant readers • A universally hilarious book that will amuse children ages 5 to 8, as well as adults In addition to banishing boredom, Yoshitake's distinctive illustrations promote visual literacy and show young readers what the process of creative thinking looks like. This smart, laugh-out-loud picture book just might change your child's perspective on the state of boredom forever. • A wonderful gift for parents, teachers, educators, librarians, caregivers, and anyone who has to answer to the statement "I'm bored!" • Perfect for readers of early chapter books • Great for fans of the Fox & Chick series by Sergio Ruzzier, Waiting Is Not Easy! (An Elephant and Piggie Book) by Mo Willems, and I'm Bored by Michael Ian Black

The first full-length study of a once revolutionary visual and linguistic medium Literature has “died” many times—this book tells the story of its death by postcard. Picturing the Postcard looks to this unlikely source to shed light on our collective, modern-day obsession with new media. The postcard, almost unimaginably now, produced at the end of the nineteenth century the same anxieties and hopes that many people think are unique to twenty-first-century social media such as Facebook or Twitter. It promised a newly connected social world accessible to all and threatened the breakdown of authentic social relations and even of language. Arguing that “new media” is as much a discursive object as a material one, and that it is always in dialogue with the media that came before it, Monica Cure reconstructs the postcard’s history through journals, legal documents, and sources from popular culture, analyzing the postcard’s representation in fiction by well-known writers such as E. M. Forster and Edith Wharton and by more obscure writers like Anne Sedgwick and Herbert Flowerdew. Writers deployed uproar over the new medium of the postcard by Anglo-American cultural critics to mirror anxieties about the changing nature of the literary marketplace, which included the new role of women in public life, the appeal of celebrity and the loss of privacy, an increasing dependence on new technologies, and the rise of mass media. Literature kept open the postcard’s possibilities and in the process reimagined what literature could be.