THE ART OF LOOKING SIDEWAYS. “Phaidon“

Alan Fletcher's The Art of Looking Sideways is an absolutelyextraordinary and inexhaustible guide to visual awareness, a virtuallyindescribable concoction of anecdotes, quotes, images, and bizarre facts thatoffers a wonderfully twisted vision of the chaos of modern life. Fletcher is arenowned designer and art director, and the joy of The Art of LookingSideways lies in its beautiful design. Loosely arranged in 72 chapters withtitles like Colour, Noise, Chance, Camouflage, and Handedness,Fletcher's book, which he describes as a journey without a destination, is acollection of shards that captures the sensory overload of a world that simplycontains too much information. In one typical section, entitled Civilization,the reader encounters six Polish flags designed to represent the world, aphotograph of an anthropomorphic handbag, Buzz Aldrin's boot print on the moon,drawings of Stone Age pebbles, a painting of Ireland--as seen from Wales, anda dizzying array of quotations and snippets of information, including the wisewords of Marcus Aurelius, Stephen Jay, and Gandhi's comment, Westerncivilization I think it would be a good idea. Fletcher's mastery of designmixes type, space, fonts, alphabets, color, and layout combined with a jackdaweye for the strange and profound to produce a stunning book that cannot be read,but only experienced. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk