Mail Order Mysteries

“Mail-Order Mysteries” by Kirk Demarais

If, like me, you are of a certain age and used to read the occasional American comic in your youth you will have memories of all the amazing mail-order adverts that used to appear inside them. For mere cents it seemed you could buy all sorts of wonders..as long as you could wait 6-8 weeks. This book exposes the shocking truth behind those ads. Photo after photo documents what you really got for your money – who would have known that X-Ray specs didn’t really work, and giant ghosts were just balloons and rubbish sacks?? This is a fun book written with a good sense of humour and fondness for the source material.

Adventures with the Wife in Space

“Adventures with the Wife in Space” by Neil Perryman (Kindle Edition)

Another highly entertaining book - also too short. In the first section Perryman presents a memoir of his life, and how the TV show Doctor Who kept intersecting with it until he became a life-long fan, the wasn’t, then was again. The second part recounts his grand experiment – to watch every single (existing) episode of classic Who from the beginning with his long-suffering wife and report her reactions online. Somehow he managed to pull it off and stay married. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and read it more or less in one sitting.

From Earth's End

“From Earth’s End” by Adrian Kinnaird

This is a handsomely produced, chunky non-fiction volume divided into 3 main parts. In the first Kinnaird provides us with a history of comic creation and publishing in New Zealand – from the early 20^th century to the present day. Well illustrated with examples this, to me, was easily the best part of the whole book. The second section gives us simple biographies of a couple of dozen NZ comic creators along with samples of their work. The last part is a collection of several NZ comic related articles and even plans for a cut out model boat. Overall it’s a great book; the only thing I found annoying was the needless repetition of some information.

Murder In Mississippi

“Murder In Mississippi” by John Safran

I’ve been something of a fan of John Safran’s TV and radio efforts over the last decade so was looking forward to reading this, his first book. It doesn’t disappoint. After discovering a white supremacist he recently filmed has been murdered by a black man, John heads off to the US south and tries to find the facts of the case. Things don’t go quite that smoothly, and a lot of the enjoyment is the fish-out-of-water aspect. My only complaint is that it was too short.