Oxford

Great Martin Parr as always. His style fits perfectly to document such a British institution. Amazing pictures, interesting texts, great print and paper quality and the book itself is splendid, I was not expecting such a large and heavy book. Recommended!

This book is spectacularly disappointing. I am a great admirer of Parr’s work and own and enjoy owning almost all his books. That’s why I bought this one, even paying the higher Amazon.co.uk price (than the price on Amazon.es, where I live) just to get it as early as possible. I look at his other works all the time and wish I could even begin to imitate his, unfortunately, inimitable style.This book contains none of the usual Parr themes or techniques. And that’s fine in the sense that an artist like Parr can evolve and explore any way he jolly well likes. But one would expect the subtlety, the irony and the respectfully distant jeering to still be present, even in his new chosen style. And if not, well the colour at least. Or the empathy. Or the absence of empathy!But there is just nothing. The man who couldn’t be copied has produced an expensive volume of uninteresting snaps, which follow none of his stated philosophies. He doesn’t find things extraordinary in the ordinary, just ordinary things in the ordinary, albeit, with a picturesque backdrop.I know that Parr has never hidden his willingness to do commercial work for money. Why wouldn’t he? We all have to eat. But this looks like a badly put together tradesman’s illustrated catalogue, or a secondary school pupil’s project.Don’t buy this book until you see a copy in a library first. I’d send mine back to Amazon but the postage cost would be prohibitive.Amazingly disappointed.

Strictly my personal taste - I don't know what I expected but I find these pictures are neither visually arresting, nor beautifully photographed and reproduced, or even quaint and touristy. If someone had wandered around with their cell phone taking random photos they could have ended up with the photos in this book. Maybe that was the point, you never know with artists - but it's not what I thought I was paying for.

First up I would of expected better from Parr but were talking tourist snap quality for many of these images (im from Oxford and really the subjects chosen are highly generic). Lacking in the "eye" and humor that one would expect from Parr. Very few images are nice. Now...whoever designed the layout for the book and binding should not be allowed near book designing ever again. When choosing double page images one would think that faces would be something to avoid. I will let these images speak for themselves. Back it goes. First time ive ever returned a photo book!

I received a damaged copy. It is very upsetting.