Alrightreads: Art Books IV

Peter Jones, Solar Wind

1980 / Ebook / 92 pages / UK

***

Fantastic beasts, impractical space bikinis and other flights of fancy.

Faves: 'By the Pricking of My Thumb,' 'The Killer Mice,' 'The Venus Trap,' 'Telempath'

Michael Whelan, Michael Whelan's Works of Wonder

1987 / Ebook / 109 pages / USA

****

Gorgeous paperback escapism.

Faves: 'The Robots of Dawn,' 'Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern,' 'H.P. Lovecraft Series,' 'Foundation's Edge'

John Harris and Ron Tiner, Mass: The Art of John Harris

2000 / Ebook / 112 pages / UK

****

Vertigo-inducing megastructures and overpromising home computer analogies offset by serene vistas.

Faves: 'Drunkard's Walk,' 'Astropolis,' 'The Age of Pussyfoot,' 'Mass: The Building of FTL1'

Thomas Hodge and artists, VHS Video Cover Art: 1980s to Early 1990s

2015 / Ebook / 264 pages / Various

***

Not as awesome as hoped, but still sometimes funny.

Faves: Gremloids, Berserker, The Death Dealer, The Stuff, The Wailing

Various, Art of Atari Poster Collection

2017 / Ebook / 42 pages / Various

**

A tellingly brief exhibition that unconvincingly attempts to bridge the chasm from sports to D&D.

Faves: Haunted House, Video Pinball, Tempest 2600

Alrightreads: Quickies

Philip Pullman, The Imagination Chamber: Cosmic Rays from Lyra's Universe

2022 / Audiobook / 87 pages / UK

**

Deleted snippets and unwritten sketches jazzed up for desperate completists.

Brendan McCarthy and Al Ewing, The Zaucer of Zilk

2012 (collected 2013) / Ebook / 76 pages / UK

****

I'n't Zilk zany?

David Lynch, The Angriest Dog in the World

1983-92 (collected 2020) / Ebook / 34 pages / USA

*

Makes Garfield look like side-splitting high art.

Rhys Hughes, Yee-Haw: Weirdly Western Poems

2022 / Ebook / 121 pages / UK

**

I'm fond of his pun-fixated fiction,

but converted to verse, I am averse.

Various, A1, Book One

1989 / Ecomic / 96 pages / UK

****

Precisely as pretentious as you'd hope a 1989 British art-comic anthology would be.

Faves: John Bolton's 'Bad Bread,' Dave Gibbons & Ted McKeever's 'Survivor,' Alan Moore & Steve Parkhouse's 'Festus: Dawn of the Dead'

Alrightgames: My Little Pony - Pinkie Pie's Party

My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Party

2008 / Nintendo DS emulator game

**

Microphone-blowing tasks stumped the tablet emulation, so the celebrations remain anticlimactically incomplete.

Alrightgames: Barbie as The Princess and the Pauper

Barbie as The Princess and the Pauper

2005 / Game Boy Advance emulator game

**

Her first strategy game. Once we're through this, she should be ready for StarCraft.

Babyliography CXXXIII

Sam Taplin and Ag Jatkowska, Usborne Musical Books: The Animal Orchestra Plays Bach

2022 / Library book / 10 pages / UK/Poland

**

Ignored the boring biography to identify who was playing what.

Úna Woods, Have You Heard Of?: Dolly Parton

2022 / Library book / 10 pages / Ireland

**

This stood out to her, for whatever reason, so we both got educated.

Rosie Greening and Stuart Lynch, Never Touch the Sharks!

2020 / Library book / 16 pages / UK

*

The Aliens to Never Touch a Shark's Alien, but a bit friendlier.

Various, First Stories: Three Billy Goats Gruff / Hansel and Gretel

2018/21 / Library books / 20 pages / USA/UK

**

That purple bloke is unlikely to go down as one of the more memorable interpretations.

Unknown, My Little Pony Annuals 2013 / 2016 / 2017

2012-16 / Hardbacks / 192 pages / UK

***

Timeless gift sets of stories, puzzles and stickers, zeitgeist be damned.

Babyliography CXXXII

Cerrie Burnell and Laura Ellen Anderson, Fairy Magic

2017 / Library book / 32 pages / UK

***

You don't have to be deaf to discover the magical kindom, but it helps.

Rob Biddulph, Sunk!

2017 / Library book / 32 pages / UK

**

You probably have to be more interested in pirates and/or penguins than either of us to really appreciate it.

M. P. Robertson, The Egg

2000 / Library book / 32 pages / UK

***

A nice, old-school picture book I could have related to as a speccy kid.

Clare Helen Welsh and Nicola O'Byrne, Wee? It Wasn't Me!

2021 / Library book / 40 pages / UK

**

Mingin', but admittedly educational.

Georgiana Deutsch and Ekaterina Trukhan, 10, 9, 8... Owls Up Late!: A Countdown to Bedtime

2018 / Preschool book / 32 pages / UK

**

At least we don't count in base 12.

Babyliography CXXXI

Margaret Mayo, Emergency!

2002 / Preschool book / 32 pages / UK

***

Back when picture books made an impression with writing rather than wheels and flaps.

Mike Brownlow and Simon Rickerty, Ten Little Pirates

2013 / Library book / 32 pages / UK

**

They made more than ten variants of these if you fancy a tedious bedtime marathon.

Axel Scheffler, Rhyming Stories: Pip the Dog / Freddy the Frog

2014 / Library book / 20 pages / Germany

**

Misleadingly flapless.

Marie Paruit, Little Big Feelings: When I Am Happy

2020 / Library book / 10 pages / France

**

DIY child therapy, even includes a happiness meter.

Benji Davies, Bizzy Bear: Ship's Captain

2023 / Library book / 10 pages / UK

**

Interactive postcards of island life.

Babyliography CXXX

Libby Frost, Princess Snowbelle and the Snow Games

2018 / Library book / 32 pages / UK

*

Another dull entry in a superfluous series. She didn't care to read it more than once.

Adam Kay and Henry Paker, Amy Gets Eaten

2023 / Library book / 32 pages / UK

***

A gonzo introduction to the digestive system.

Tom Fletcher, Dougie Poynter and Garry Parsons, The Dinosaur That Pooped a Princess!

2018 / Library book / 32 pages / UK

**

Of course it's a whole series. When you gotta go, you gotta go.

Various, The Owl and the Pussy-cat and Other Poems

2012 / Paperback / 55 pages / UK

**

Starts well with a few nonsense poems, then bulks out the majority of the thin volume with miscellaneous dullness.

Bobbie Brooks and Villie Karabatzia, Diggers

2021 / Library book / 8 pages / UK/Greece

**

If your toddler's too wussy to play on a real building site.

Babyliography CXXIX

Kes Gray and Jim Field, Oi Frog!

2014 / Library book / 24 pages / UK

**

This relentless parade of animal rhymes felt twice as long as it was. The visual of a frog with splinters in its bottom stayed with her.

Unknown, Disney Moana: My Busy Books

2016 / Board book and figurines set / 10 pages / UK

*

Bought for cheap figures, there isn't even a story to play along with this time, they expect you to use imagination or something.

Carly Gledhill, It's Time to... Bake It!

2023 / Library book / 12 pages / UK

**

Stiff flaps in the new library book ironically made it harder work than actual baking.

Julia Donaldson and Helen Oxbury, Welcome to the World

2022 / Library book / 32 pages / UK

**

Predictable rhymes are a positive in this age bracket.

Richard Byrne, This Book Just Ate My Dog! / This Book Just Stole My Cat!

2014/2019 / Library books / 64 pages / UK

***

Interactive pet rescue, with alternative sequels pandering to animal racists.

Babyliography CXXVIII

Unknown, My Little Pony: The Movie Early Reader – The Movie Storybook

2017 / Library book / 32 pages / UK

**

A poor alternative to the big picture book, at least for storytime purposes.

Unknown, My Little Pony Early Reader: Rarity's Friendship Lesson

2018 / Library book / 32 pages / UK

***

Appropriately the rarest of these, online and in the wild, it turned out to be an oft-adapted tale anyway.

Lauren Holowaty, Peppa Pig: Peppa's Super-duper Sticker Book

2011 / Sticker activity book / 16 pages / UK

**

Exactly the same as the rest, but it's been a while. Home Bargains needs to step up its discount sticker activity book game for 2023.

Hazel Edwards and Deborah Niland, There's a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake

1980 / Preschool book / 28 pages / Australia

****

The classics are curated by time, so I'm spared having to read all the generic '80s animal picture books to find them.

Jarvis, Tropical Terry

2018 / Library book / 32 pages / UK

**

Features an eel rather than a predictable shark, so that's something.

Alrightreads: TV XVI

Paul Simpson and David Hughes, Farscape: The Illustrated Companion

2000 / Ebook / 160 pages / UK

***

A whole book on the lengthy genesis of Space Chase with more of that intriguing concept art would have been more interesting, but this suffices as your bogstandard episode guide.

Delilah S. Dawson, Joe R. Lansdale, Keith Lansdale, Elena Casagrande and Silvia Califano, The X-Files: Case Files

2018 / Ebook / 96 pages / USA/Italy

****

A pair of tall tales more fun than nearly all of the TV revival.

Juan Ortiz, Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Art of Juan Ortiz

2017 / Ebook / 208 pages / Puerto Rico

**

A good effort to graphically interpret every damned episode, but I didn't feel it.

Trevor Baxendale, Doctor Who: Decide Your Destiny – Claws of the Macra

2010 / Ebook / 144 pages / UK

**

I honestly expected more from a hack children's tie-in gamebook. Even the Sonic ones had a customisable character sheet. It's inevitably over quickly with that page count, and prone to inevitable errors, but it does at least give you that authentic sense of being the curious sucker in the opening minutes of an episode.

Phil Farrand, The Nitpicker's Guide for Deep Space Nine Trekkers

1996 / Paperback / 397 pages / USA

****

Having loved his Next Gen guide, I can't remember why I didn't snap this up the one time when I saw it in Oracle Books as a teenager, while the series was still going and steadily becoming my favourite incarnation, but my dithering was no doubt partly culpable in a Volume II never materialising.