I just finished THE ENGLISHMAN WHO POSTED HIMSELF by John Tingey for review in December and I have to say this one was really interesting. Tingey is a stamp collector and came across an odd collection of postcards at an auction in 2001. He bought them for the uniqueness, not expecting any value, and found himself on the trail of Reginald Bray, an Englishman who mailed thousands (tens of thousands) of postcards in his lifetime all over the world. He also mailed unusual objects in a challenge to the postal authority. Basically he wanted to see what he could send so he sent weird stuff - like a turnip, a bicycle and a bowler hat. None of these things were boxed - he just slapped postage and an address on them and sent them on their way. Neat.

(As an aside, we shipped all sorts of weird stuff for the USPS when I was with the Company in AK. We shipped a fully assembled bike, just like Bray, and also boxes of live baby chicks, new boat motors, sleds, a lot of duffle bags, empty dog kennels, etc.)
Bray also mailed postcards with unique addresses, most especially those with a photo on the front that showed where he wanted them to go. One very cool one showed the Caledonian Express (a train) and was addressed to "Driver of Locomotive no. 735, Caledonian Railway, Glasgow Station". It was received and sent back, signed by one the "locomotive superintendent".

(He also sent the one above that was addressed simply to "Any Resident of London". The postal service returned it, alas, as undeliverable.)

Bray went on to send postcards to people all over the world amassing a huge autograph collection on top of his postal experiments. Prior to his death in 1939 (at age 70), he wrote extensively about his hobbies. His family sold off much of the collection (which is how Tingey came across those first postcards) but those they kept and his granddaughter wrote an intro for the book. Tingey has continued to seek out Bray's work and has a ton of examples in here all of which are accompanied by a narrative explaining what Bray did with each type of card and what he hoped to accomplish.

This is the sort of quirky nonfiction that generally just makes me smile. The book (from Princeton Arch Press) is gorgeous - first class design, paper, illustrations, and the story is so different and told in such a cozy (for lack of a better word) way that you fall under Bray's spell and start thinking about creating your own mail art long before the final pages. It's the sort of book that I think would easily appeal to artsy types but also to those who harbor their own love of stamps and foreign places and reaching out to the world.

I'm recommending it as an offbeat teen title - there are kids out there who are going to love Reginald Bray and everything he pursued.

[The pub sent me a copy of this one for review.] [That last photo is Reginald in 1903, after he and his bike were delivered by the post office!]