Here, There, and All Over the Place
Quips, Quotes, and "Quosters"
Here, There, and All Over the Place is a collection of day brighteners, motivators, and thoughts set in an appealing format.
Johnny “JR” Remick’s Here, There, and All Over the Place collects over 150 aphorisms—those little sayings that offer encouragement, bring a momentary smile, capture fleeting thoughts, or trigger pun-inspired groans.
The book’s outstanding feature is its imaginative layout. Sayings are set four or six to a page with tidy, clearly marked, colorful frames. They are ripe to be cut out and stuck on bulletin boards or inside cards. Sayings are printed on both sides of each page, but the book is well-bound and slim enough to be laid flat on a scanner and copied.
The first and longest section contains more than half the book’s sayings. It consists of “quosters”—miniature posters with background photos or artwork that reflect the sayings printed over them. The quosters are in color, and there are four to each page. This sizing works well; none of the quosters look skimpy or cramped, and their details can be easily seen.
Following the quosters is a section titled “Chalk Dust Philosophy,” with twenty more aphorisms set in frames that look like blackboards and lettered in a font that looks like chalked print. A third section offers thirty-six shorter sayings set in lower case, each in a brightly colored rectangular box. There are six sayings on each page here, and the overall design effect is colorful and cheerful. Rounding out the book are eighteen unframed, unillustrated ruminations that tend to be somewhat longer than others in the book.
While the design themes vary from section to section, there is no distinct theme to any one section. An aphorism on risk-taking is as likely to appear in the first section as in the last. Any thought can go anywhere.
Sayings fall into familiar and basic themes: get off your couch and get busy, stop to smell the flowers, trust your heart, love others, respect opinions that differ from your own, take risks, share your gifts, start small and stick with it, and so on. They are the kind of short inspirations and reminders that people like to stick on fridge doors and computer screens.
The aphorisms themselves are clearly written, innocuous, and friendly, with no bitter zingers or cynical comparisons of life to four-letter words. Good use is made of analogies. Readers are reminded that sweeping problems under the rug often leads to a trip and fall. Younger people might especially enjoy the turns and surprises of double meanings, as when the search for happiness is likened to a butterfly: “sometimes you just have to wing it.”
Here, There, and All Over the Place: Quips, Quotes, and “Quosters“ is a collection of day brighteners, motivators, and thoughts set in an appealing format.
Reviewed by
Susan Waggoner
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
