Bookworms: Point Your Face At This (2011) by Demetri Martin

“Reality is a concept that depends largely upon where you point your face” says Demetri Martin’s book on the first page, which is a good way to summarise this series of comedy drawings, lists and graphs. Martin has the ability to spot something different in everyday things, deconstructing them and presenting them in a new way with hilarious results. Don’t expect any great works of art. Martin’s distinct hand drawn style suits his material, but it is very simplistic.

Martin presents us with the equation “Justice is served > Just ice is served”. There’s a Venn diagram showing the relationship between candy, maracas and Tic Tacs. There’s a correction of the phrase “tug of war” to “war of tug”, which makes a lot of sense when you think about it. My personal favourite was a graveyard of words that are no longer in common use. In the background we have “thou” and “groovy”, in the foreground “your” and “ur” mourn the death of “you’re”. It’s silly, it’s clever and it’s funny.

This is a short review for a short book. It will only take an hour to go through it all, but you can keep revisiting it once in a while. It’s perfect for passing a few minutes, making you laugh and attracting visitors to your desk at work. If you like Martin’s style, you will find it hysterical.