Peter Pinney Anthology Cover

Peter Pinney, The Road to Anywhere: the Writings of Peter Pinney. Selected by John Borthwick. UQP. 

This was the book via which I discovered Peter Pinney. Australian traveller, vagabond, adventurer, and writer of his extraordinarily true travel stories during the very different world of the 1950s. 

This anthology, like many of my other books, I picked-up-put-down-&-picked-up-again then I bought it. From the fabulous second-hand upstairs section of Berkelouws Books in Leichhardt, if I remember correctly. 

It includes amazing adventures from Pinney's different books that you could use in a TV show that you would dismiss as beinfar- fetched. He is a product of his time of course. But there are some great descriptions of people and places too. 

Off the top of my head, Pinney caustically describes his encounter with a chap who travels in order to boast about where he's been. "His suitcase, if he had one, would be swarming with a bright salad of labels."  

More in the next post. 

PIL Album Cover

Public Image Limited (PIL). Happy?

2 disclaimers:

i) This is HD's album, not mine

ii) The thing on the left-hand side of the album is my thumb and shadow. The background is actually all white. 

The PIL frontman/singer/songwriter is none other than John Lydon - Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols. 

There is an unmistakable scathing social critique in many of Lydon's song lyrics. This album cover is no different. 

Featureless, high-rise apartments clustered claustrophobically close together like people leaning in for a photo. There is no breathing room between the buildings. The allocated living quarters of the poor, the powerless, the feeble, the addicts, the 'social problems'... Slums. In the US, the catch-all term is "the projects". 

The bright, childishly-happy colours are in contrast to the grim, bleak reality of such living spaces. 

It makes the title 'Happy?' with its multiple meanings all the more poignant. 

Would you be happy to live here?

Do the people who live here have a right to be anything but happy?

Are you happy now with the 'solution' you've provided?

The 3 'clouds' going from an orange centre to a black one could symbolise a few things: 

From light to darkness the longer you live there. 

From equanimity to despair. 

From health to ill-health. 

Definitely a cover with a message. 

Historical fiction cover

Dee Brown, Creek Mary's Blood. 

At first glance, it's a fairly innocuous cover that tells you it's about Native Americans, set in the past. 

But there's a bit more to be read from the cover. Native Americans in the American past are often located in the popular narrative of the 'olden days' of the 'wild west' - and often as bit players. The cover places the Native Americans front and centre.  The fact it's an old photo also shows the story is set not too long ago (ie, recent enough that cameras were around, which - for me - pushes it out of some long-distant mythical Wild West era and closer to a time within living memory. 

The tipis indicate also that the story features the Plains peoples (who use tipis). And the title of course place a female character front and centre. While my initial thoughts are that the cover doesn't really show the scope of the story within, it still shows a whole lot. 

This was a required text for a university course. I didn't get into it in one go. I read/skimmed the first lot of required pages (some small number like 20 pages or something) dutifully and stopped - which is significant because usually, once I start reading, I don't stop. 

Then, when the next lot of required was due, my heart sank. It was 180-odd pages. But to my surprise, I powered through them and kept going through to the end. I ignored my other required readings with a clear conscience, telling myself virtuously that I was getting ahead on this text. 

A well-told story. 

Pulitzer Prize book cover

Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies. 

Lest I give the impression I only ever read 'light' or 'fluffy' books, this is a collection of short stories which offer snapshots of the human experience, through the lens of the Indian diaspora. 

Touching, heartbreaking, despairing and profoundly sweet in turns, the stories are told with a kind of clinical compassion. You can reach in and feel the helplessness, the ennui or the bleakness of the characters' lives. Or you can see the happiness of lives lived between the words. 

 I return to my favourites more than others. The final story in particular - of a life well-lived - is at once ordinary, uplifting and beautiful. 

Chick Lit cover #4

Alison Sherlock, The Desperate Bride's Diet Club. 

I did my usual with this book. Picked it up because of the cover illustration, rolled my eyes at the title and skimmed a couple of random pages and put it down.  It stayed with me so I went back a couple of days later and reconsidered. 

I did like it. The characters stayed with me and I thought they were nicely drawn out. The dieting guru was a real witch ( I need to practise writing out my own witchy characters, and she's a good model to start with!) 

But I didn't think the bad guy's comeuppance was great. It was a very obvious climactic scene, but there wasn't enough seeing him hoisted with his own petard. We see all the excruciating moments that the heroine goes through kinda at the hands of the bad guy. And sometimes I just want payback (even though - I know, I know! - the heroine always has to rise above such pettiness. But still...)

Definitely has re-read value. 

Vroom with a View cover

Peter Moore, Vroom with a View

How absolutely gorgeous is this cover? Love, love, love this style of illustration. 

It helps enormously of course that Peter Moore's writing is witty, lighthearted and delightful to read. 

He calls his Vespa 'Sophia'. Of course. 

Chuck Amuck Cover

Chuck Jones, The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist. 

Who doesn't love Chuck Jones' creations?? Even in Dodo-Land, I was able to grow up with Merry Melodies and all the gang. 

There's so much to look at in this cover:

- the cool b&w outlines of the buildings. 

- Daffy in his predicament (with his quintessentially Daffy reactions) but in that well-known surreal cene which also plays with the 'gap' between viewer and creator. 

- I'm surprised how I can still recognise all the characters in silhouette!!

Time for a re-read, I think...