There's not a word of commentary in this book, but that part is up to you. Certain things begin to stand out as you flip through the pages. Like the always blue skies. (Positive thinking!) Or the potentially interesting details that are uniformly obliterated, thanks to those polite middle-distance views and the muddy qualities of cheap lithography. There's a weird tension between the blandly generic ("Fine Food" reads the only visible sign atop a low-slung white building) and the proudly local (according to the postcard caption, this is "The famous Blue Grill on U.S. 40, St. Elmo, Ill."). In its silently subversive way, Boring Postcards USA proposes that we look more closely at this hallowed form of marketing to see what it tells us about the values and standards of mainstream American culture. --Cathy Curtis

Synopsis
In the original "Boring Postcards", Magnum photographer and postcard enthusiast, Martin Parr, brought together the dullest postcards of 50s, 60s and 70s Britain. Here he turns his attention to the States with 160 of the dullest postcards from the land of opportunity. To qualify, a postcard's composition, content or characters had to be arguably "boring" or absent of interest. The book provides not only amusement, but a commentary on how America has changed, and a celebration of those places that have been forgotten by conventional history.