Jeremy Nguyen’s drawing is set in a living room, where two men are reading. All the furniture (the two chairs, the coffee and end tables) is made out of books. One man is saying something to the other.
I first assumed the books are from the library:
- “How many times can we renew them?”
- “The library called again.”
- “The fines are killing us.”
I then thought about which titles might be a good fit for a specific piece of furniture: “Remembrance of Things Past would make a lovely ottoman.”
Now let’s see how you did.
Some of you took sides in the battle between books and the Amazon device that’s destroying book sales:
- “I bet those Kindle readers can’t do this.”
- “Can’t do this with e-books.”
- “You couldn’t do this with Kindles.”
- “I’m thinking about getting a Kindle.”
- “Fuck Kindle.”
Like I did, many of you submitted entries premised on the idea that the furniture’s made from library books:
- “The library called…”
- “The library called. Again.”
- “The library called today. We’ve been banned.”
- “If it weren’t for the overdue fines we could afford some real furniture.”
- “Are you sure the library discontinued late fines?”
- “This one was due June 12, 1996.”
- “When are these due back at the library?”
- “I just got another notice from the library.”
- “By the way, I burned your library card.”
There were a surprising number of decent puns. (I’m always surprised when a pun is decent.)
- “At least the literature supports us.”
- “I’ve read everything I could get my ass on.”
- “There’s nothing like sitting down on a good book.”
- “Do some books make you feel uncomfortable?”
- “Can you pass me one of the coffee table books?”
- “You need to read the room.”
- “Read the room.”
Most of the books in the drawing appear to be hardbacks, but several of you suggested a potentially better alternative:
- “I think we’d be more comfortable with paperbacks.”
- “You’d be a lot more comfortable if you’d waited til the paperbacks came out.”
- “Now I wish we’d bought softcovers.”
- “I prefer paperbacks for my sciatica.”
Several of you explained why the men have so many books they can repurpose:
- “Your self-publishing venture wasn’t a total loss.”
- “Self-publishing wasn’t such a bad idea after all.”
- “My first novel didn’t sell that well.”
- “This is the last time I self-publish.”
That final entry would be better if the words “This is” were replaced with “That’s.”
The next set of entries focus on a piece of furniture the men don’t have:
- “What this room needs is a bookcase.”
- “If I had a bookshelf I wouldn’t know what to do with it.”
- “Why would we need a bookshelf?”
- “Have you considered putting some shelves in your library?”
One of you, however, suggested that the men actually do have shelves: “Now there’s shelf space for your tchotchkes.”
Finally, here are six strong captions that don’t fit neatly into any category:
- “We should get a TV.”
- “Philip Roth offers excellent lumbar support.”
- “I wish the movers had lost our books and not our furniture.”
- “I buy all my furniture at Barnes & Noble.”
- “The library was having a book sale, and I needed furniture.”
- “I was just musing that if more people had bought your book on how to live without furniture, we wouldn’t be living without furniture.”
Number 5 would be shorter, subtler and funnier without the word “book.” What else would a library be selling? And number 6 is really long and would be better (but still long) without the first five words. They’re unnecessary, so get rid of them.
It’s been a while since I’ve highlighted forty entries. That’s still a small percentage of the almost 1,000 received, but I’m impressed. Choosing the best of the week is hard. I like the library entries (and not just because some are similar to mine), but they don’t really address the fact that the books are being used as furniture. Same for the Kindle and self-publishing entries. I’m therefore choosing, “I wish the movers had lost our books and not our furniture.”
ENTER THIS WEEK’S CAPTION CONTEST
Lawrence Wood has won The New Yorker’s Cartoon Caption Contest a record-setting seven times and been a finalist two other times. He has collaborated with New Yorker cartoonists Peter Kuper, Lila Ash, Felipe Galindo Gomez, and Harry Bliss (until Bliss tossed him aside, as anyone would, to collaborate with Steve Martin). Nine of his collaborations have appeared in The New Yorker, and one is included in the New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons.