And another one of the December 2020 gifts, this one is probably a birthday one. I timed it well with my birthday, it is too far from Christmas to give people and excuse to lump the gifts together, so I get them twice in one month. I start wondering if I'll ever again read a …
Continue reading Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A True (as told to me) Story – Bess Kalb
Fates and Furies has been recommended to me by my mum (funnily enough, as I read it I discovered she did not, so it was all a hearsay recommendation), back when it was published in 2015. It was lingering on my Kindle for a while despite, or maybe because the book caused so much noise. …
It wasn’t really about the engineering of the space, the real battle was about the culture — about changing the hearts and minds of New Yorkers, of changing their minds about who their streets were for. If building roads actually resulted in less traffic, then surely after sixty years of interstate highway construction we would …
It was probably last year when I got from my mum a set of four books about modern approaches to urban design. I read them slowly because the subject matter is a serious one. It touches us every day. Since most of us live in cities, the design mistakes haunt us, making our life difficult …
Continue reading Streetfight. Handbook for an Urban Revolution – Janette Sadik-Khan, Seth Solomonow
The third of my Cyprus holiday crime/thriller reads. The previous two were The Winner by David Baldacci and Camino Island by John Grisham. Coben is the third writer I do fall back on when in need of not too challenging entertainment. He certainly knows how to come up with a twist in the story and …
This was one of those books that lingered on my Kindle forever and a day. It just always terrified my with its bulk. And for a book to do that on Kindle it really has to be long. Two years ago I read How To Be Alone, Franzen's collection of essays. And I really enjoyed …
'It's not easy writing about nothing' That's how Patti Smith starts her book. The words uttered by a cowpoke in her dream. A kind of challenge that she accepts. Before I proceed with the review bit, I need to make a small disclaimer. I have seen Patti Smith live on All Points East in 2018, …
I got this book from my mum for Christmas I think, or my birthday. In Polish edition, it has a beautiful cover, so I was tempted to read it, but at the same time deterred by its size. Finally roaming my shelves during lockdown in April I got to it. It is an odd choice …
Continue reading Wanderlust: A History of Walking – Rebecca Solnit
It is one of the four books on city planning I got from my mum last Christmas. I have Polish editions, but where I can identify the English version I'll refer to it for convenience (it saves me re-translating the title). My mum is a civil engineer and I am an art historian by education. …
Continue reading Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design – Charles Montgomery
I bought this book back in 2018 during my crazy bookshop crawl. Looking at the list now, I'm pretty much done reading half of the books I bought then. Definitely not running out of reading matter anytime soon! Witold Rybczynski is an architect and a professor, but he is mostly known for his writings on …
Continue reading Mysteries of the Mall and other Essays – Witold Rybczynski
