Harvey Benge: Lucky Box: A guide to modern living

By DITA DE BONI

The "universality" of the world's cities and "urban excess with weird narrative" are themes in Auckland-based Harvey Benge's photographic fruit salad of cities, including Auckland, Paris and Tokyo.

Benge provides no text or direction: wanting readers of his sixth book to be "authors" of the work, he is loath to give interpretations.

"I find my pictures to be often unintelligible to myself; rather, the pictures form the text, the explanation," he says.

In both conversation and his work he suggests cities are much of a muchness, while admitting his perfect cosmos would be a mixture of "Karekare and Paris".

Strangely heartless, the best of this collection has captured the mildly odd and downright peculiar aspects of inner-city life.

Dewi Lewis

$59.95

* Dita de Boni is a Herald feature-writer.