Life In Five Seconds by Matteo Civaschi and Gianmarco Milesi (Quercus, £9.99) (From Gazette & Herald)

Life In Five Seconds by Matteo Civaschi and Gianmarco Milesi (Quercus, £9.99)

8:00am Wednesday 5th December 2012 in Books

THIS entertaining and amusing book takes 200 important events, people, inventions and wonders of the natural world, as well as celebrities, and tells their stories in a series of pictograms that are straight to the point in a delightful way.

The idea started as a project to tell the stories of six characters from the past, including Napoleon and Michael Jackson and, when completed, the graphics were a great success online.

After coming to the attention of a literary agent, it was proposed that these stories should be made into a book and so this volume was born.

The graphics are splendidly done and while we are told what they represent at the bottom of the page, it is fun to work out, or sometimes guess, what they represent.

It is even more fun to do it with friends.

For people who don’t like reading this could be a valuable teaching aid, as long as you don’t take it too seriously. This is a book that is something different.