NONFICTION

NONFICTION
'Rubber!' bounces onto the store scene
NEW YORK -- Just about everyone uses rubber in some form -- in tires, erasers, galoshes, hot-water bottles, rubber bands, rubber stamps or rubber duckies.
In a new book, "Rubber! Fun, Fashion, Fetish" (Thames & amp; Hudson, $22.50), text and 500 color illustrations demonstrate many other ways in which rubber has befriended mankind.
Authors Janet Bloor and John D. Sinclair -- who have wrapped their book in covers of fragrant, bright orange rubber -- show how stretching the imagination has found a variety of uses for the stuff in clothing, furniture, prosthetics, toys, building materials, utensils, tools, home decor, athletic equipment and the Goodyear blimp.
Illustrations show smoking pipes, bathroom sinks and commodes made of rubber, and recycled-rubber wares including wallets, bags, coasters and place mats.
Reproduced are print ads for rubber gloves, tires, swim caps and Rubber Cult perfume, "for fetish people, rubber lovers and others"; and packaging for Swingline rubber fingertips (to provide traction for turning pages), Baldwin hair curlers ("no heat required"), Hiawatha elastic sewing thread, Speakeasy natural chewing gum and Good Luck jar gaskets for home canning.
Associated Press
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