Edition : Hardcover: 256 pages
ISBN: 0747560854
FROM THE PUBLISHER
The wit and wisdom of thirty sprightly, wise old birds— marbled with quotes that range from Leon Trotsky to The Beatles—all collected and illustrated by the celebrated author/illustrator of Hey! Get Off Our Train! and Mr Gumpy’s Outing. A marvelous book to give as a gift or to hoard for oneself.
“It’s a law of script writing that scenes get shorter and the action speeds up towards the end. In childhood, the afternoons spread out for years. For the old, the years flicker past like the briefest of afternoons. The playwright Christopher Fry, now ninety–three, told me that after the age of eighty, you seem to be having breakfast every five minutes. These film scenes, building to an inevitable climax, tend less to tragedy than farce. Dying is a matter of slapstick and prat falls. The ageing process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn’t ready to appear ridiculous.” —John Mortimer
In John Burningham’s well–stocked larder of the fruits of age are contributions from Sir Paul Getty, Doris Lessing, Sir Patrick Moore, Dervla Murphy, Ronald Searle and twenty–five others on themes that range from Time and Travel to Love and Marriage. Woven through these pieces is a dazzling strand of quotes from such luminaries as T.S. Eliot, Robert Redford, Dorothy Parker, Bob Hope, and Ogden Nash. Collected and wittily illustrated by the incomparable John Burningham— twice winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal and author and illustrator of many beloved books for children, including Avocado Baby, Borka, Trubloff, and Cloudland. |
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