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Life Smiles Back

About The Book

For many years, faithful readers of America's favorite magazine regularly began each issue of Life by thumbing to the back first to see the Miscellany page, which was designed to close each issue with an amusing -- often outrageous -- photograph that would leave the reader laughing. Life Smiles Back is a hilarious collection of the best photographs from this popular back page. Now in paperback, it includes 232 black-and-white photos of children, animals, and people in unconventional situations and outlandish circumstances, mostly taken by Life renders and assembled by one of the magazine's most renowned editors.
A nostalgic collection of crazy snaps that whimsically recall the people, places, and events of the past, Life Smiles Back is an affectionate look at the zany side of our cultural history, guaranteed to make you smile.

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Is all about

TAKING IT EASY

Cool Babe


In Big Spring, Texas, eight-month-old Liam Sean Horey spends his first summer in buoyant bliss.

Hi Tech

To ward off chills and sneezes in the Usti Zoo, Czechoslovakian chimps get a daily bake from a sunlamp.

This hot dog is some cool cat as he beats the heat in Philadelphia.

Pack Animals Packed

In Algeria, a donkey gets a piggyback.

In England, a dwarf donkey travels in a satchel.

Winkin',

In Australia, a koala bear demonstrates what sloth is all about.

Blinkin',

Meanwhile, in French Guiana, a sloth displays the real thing.

and Nod

A proboscis monkey takes his ease after a swim in the South China Sea.

Getting Away from It All

An ingenious postman in Idaho takes refuge from the rain in a mail storage box.

Gordon Breland of Charleston, South Carolina, perches
atop his favorite getaway.

Playing It Cool

In Chicago, a polar bear drapes himself over a frozen snowbank.

In San Francisco, Old Lionface waits for afternoon tea.

Bathing Beauties

Frieda's bath has been drawn, a warm towel awaits her, and now she can lean back and relax in her kitchen sink turned hot tub.

What smoother, cooler pool for a puss to curl up in?

Kitten comfort in a Massachusetts slipper.

Sweet Dreams

Guess who won the shoving match in Mississippi.

A contented siesta in Tanganyika.

Copyright © 1987 by Time Inc.

About The Author

Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr., was managing editor at Life magazine from 1978 to 1982. He also edited Life: The First 50 Years, which was a New York Times bestseller. 

Product Details

  • Publisher: Touchstone (September 15, 1988)
  • Length: 224 pages
  • ISBN13: 9780671672225

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