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Utterly Lazy and Inattentive
  • Published: 12 December 2026
  • ISBN: 9781802068719
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 312
  • RRP: $48.00
Categories:

Utterly Lazy and Inattentive

Martin Parr in Words and Pictures

Formats & editions
Paperback
12 Dec 2026
Hardback
2 Dec 2025
EBook
4 Sept 2025
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In this collection of iconic pictures, one of the most popular photographers on the planet recounts his life and art - and gives us a love song to queues, church fêtes, and Spice Girls-themed crisps

That’s very much one of my techniques: just hang around. Loitering with intent.

When Martin Parr was fourteen, his teacher wrote that he was ‘utterly lazy and inattentive’ in a school report. He went on to become one of the most successful and sought-after photographers in the world. In his lifetime, Martin would publish over one hundred photobooks on subjects from seaside resorts to smoking. In this book, for the first and only time, Martin tells his own story, in his own words.

This is the definitive account of a great photographer’s work, life and times. It gathers over 150 of Martin’s photographs with his recollections and reflections, his distinctive voice delicately captured by his friend, the writer Wendy Jones. We see him exploding into the public consciousness in the late eighties with a series of startling, ultra-saturated colour images of the British seaside – and scandalising the photography establishment in the process. As society changes over the decades, Martin’s particular passions remain: crowds and queues, fetes and placards, bad weather on beaches. Looking at the world through his eyes and his lens, we come away seeing Martin Parr – and ourselves – a little differently.
  • Published: 12 December 2026
  • ISBN: 9781802068719
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 312
  • RRP: $48.00
Categories:

About the authors

Wendy Jones

Wendy Jones is a writer, a special needs teacher and founder of the underground literary club 'Peach' and the author, with the artist, of Grayson Perry's biography.
WJ

Praise for Utterly Lazy and Inattentive

Martin Parr is a genius

W Magazine

Martin Parr is the quintessential anorak

Prospect

Martin Parr is the ultimate chronicler of Englishness

VICE

Martin Parr is the Jay-Z of documentary photography

Star Tribune

Like any successful spy, Martin Parr is the sort of guy you wouldn’t look at twice if you passed him in the street

The Times

Martin Parr is the emperor of bad taste

Vicki Goldberg

Like all great artists, Martin Parr has altered how we see the world

Grayson Perry

- - Praise for Martin Parr

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Gorgeous … I loved Parr’s emphasis on recording the everyday, which is boring at the time, and then precious afterwards, when it’s gone. It’s just what I hope to do with writing, and treasure in reading

Tessa Hadley

Poignant, deeply personal … It includes the stories behind some of Parr’s most iconic photographs, all told with his signature dry humor … Utterly Lazy and Inattentive reflects how Parr approached photography — and life — with infinite wonder and curiosity

The New York Times

Martin Parr is a chronicler of our age … Parr enables us to see things that have seemed familiar to us in a completely new way

Thomas Weski, curator