This is really just a book of eye candy. It’s full of matchbook covers in all different languages in all different styles but they seem to be mostly from the 50s and 60s. The book is Japanese so I can’t read any of the captions or small paragraphs in each section. Between each chapter there is also a photo of a strange knitted sculpture that uses matches. The first one is just a knitted ball with a match sticking out of the top- maybe it would make more sense if I could read the text. Most of the matchbooks seem to be advertising for something else- coffee, cameras, sewing machines. It’s scary that so many of them seemed to be geared towards children with fun characters and bright colors- even some with cartoon children eating candy. I got this book at Kinokuniya (ISBN 978-4-89444-594-9) where I also got the chewing gum wrappers book I posted about a while ago. I ain’t get enough of these types of books.

© Julia Rothman 2007