R.E.A.D. Dogs

I got this wonderful postcard today through Postcrossing. It's my first postcard from a dog! Beau, the sender, has his own blog to chronicle his adventures as a R.E.A.D. (Reading Education Assistance Dog) at a library in Finland. 

I wish Norman or Walter had the temperament to be a reading therapy dog. Maybe our next pug... in any case, Beau inspires me. He signed his postcard, "Books and dogs are good for you." I couldn't agree more!

Beauty and the Beast

My mother got me one of the items on my Christmas list: a book featuring animals on real photo postcards, Beauty and the Beast: Human-Animal Relations as Revealed in Real Photo Postcards, 1905-1935.

Some of the reproductions are wonderful: animals adopted as mascots by armed service personnel, pets, and so on. Others are more disturbing, chronicling our less noble uses of animals. (I think we are the beast; the animals represent beauty.)

I haven't read the text yet, but I look forward to spending more time exploring this book.

BOOK: A History of Postcards

I happened upon a copy of Martin Willoughby's A History of Postcards: A Pictorial Record from the Turn of the Century to the Present Day (1992) at a local antique mall, so, of course, I had to get it.

While I'm not sure I'd pay full price for the book, I am glad I found a bargain copy. There is more textual history here than in The Postcard Century by Tom Phillips, and it includes reproductions of some fun novelty cards as well as war time cards, including a coded message sent to the London War Office. Willoughby explains changes in postcard style and regulations over time, and concludes in the late 1980s with some music postcards.