Book review: Scrawl: An A-Z Of Famous Doodles, by Caren, Claudia and Todd Strauss-Schulson

Whoever signed off on the cover for this otherwise fascinating book needs a bit of a talking to. For a start, the title’s all wrong. The doodles contained within are not “famous doodles”. They are doodles by famous people, true enough, but as one of the co-authors, Todd Strauss-Schulson, points out in his foreword, they have mostly remained under lock and key for decades. Until such time as this book becomes a runaway bestseller, then, these doodles are the opposite of famous. Not only that, the poorly punctuated sub-heading which describes them as “Sketchings, Jottings, and Notes from the Greatest Minds in History” is nonsense. Sir Edmund Hillary was a great mountaineer, but I don’t think he could really lay claim to having had one of the “greatest minds in history.” Similarly, few people would be likely to put Harpo and Chico Marx or Queen Victoria on their lists of Top Ten Intellectual Heavyweights of All Time.