book pickings

a visual way to explore the brain pickings book archive :: otlet's shelf theme :: back to brain pickings

CREATIVITY :: DESIGN :: SCIENCE :: HISTORY :: PSYCHOLOGY :: ART

cities

  1. The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City Alan Ehrenhalt “… unrefined, menacing to some, and occasionally violent, but full of the raw energy of day-to-day human existence.” Fascinating anatomy of European street life in 1900:

    The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City

    Alan Ehrenhalt

    “… unrefined, menacing to some, and occasionally violent, but full of the raw energy of day-to-day human existence.”

    Fascinating anatomy of European street life in 1900:
  2. All the Buildings in New York James Gulliver Hancock “It is the other ordinary buildings, spilling with hectic daily life, that hold real New York life and passion.” All the buildings in New York, illustrated.

    All the Buildings in New York

    James Gulliver Hancock

    “It is the other ordinary buildings, spilling with hectic daily life, that hold real New York life and passion.” All the buildings in New York, illustrated.
  3. New York: A Serendipiter’s Journey Gay Talese A hierarchy of New York’s cats from the father of literary journalism, with exclusive illustration.

    New York: A Serendipiter’s Journey

    Gay Talese

    A hierarchy of New York’s cats from the father of literary journalism, with exclusive illustration.
  4. Berenice Abbott: Changing New York Berenice Abbott A breathtaking time-capsule of this ageless, ever-changing city from pioneering photographer Berenice Abbott.

    Berenice Abbott: Changing New York

    Berenice Abbott

    A breathtaking time-capsule of this ageless, ever-changing city from pioneering photographer Berenice Abbott.
  5. Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time Jeff Speck “City engineers have turned our downtowns into places that are easy to get to but not worth arriving at.” City planner Jeff Speck, who spent four years leading the design division of the National Endowment for the Arts working directly with a couple hundred mayors to help solve their greatest city-planning challenges, turns a perceptive eye towards what makes a great city and how we might be able to harness the power of a conceptually simple, practically complex, immeasurably far-reaching solution in improving the fabric and experience of urban life.

    Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time

    Jeff Speck

    “City engineers have turned our downtowns into places that are easy to get to but not worth arriving at.”

    City planner Jeff Speck, who spent four years leading the design division of the National Endowment for the Arts working directly with a couple hundred mayors to help solve their greatest city-planning challenges, turns a perceptive eye towards what makes a great city and how we might be able to harness the power of a conceptually simple, practically complex, immeasurably far-reaching solution in improving the fabric and experience of urban life.
  6. The City’s End: Two Centuries of Fantasies, Fears, and Premonitions of New York’s Destruction Prof. Max Page “Visions of New York’s destruction resonated with some of the most longstanding themes in American history: the ambivalence toward cities, the troubled reaction to immigrants and racial diversity, the fear of technology’s impact, and the apocalyptic strain in American religious life. Furthermore, these visions of the city’s end have paralleled the city’s economic, political, racial, and physical transformations. Projections of the city’s end reflected and refracted the dominant social issues. Each era in New York’s modern history has produced its own apocalyptic imagery that explores, exploits, and seeks to resolve contemporary cultural tensions and fears.” A fascinating visual history of 200 years of NYC’s destruction in fiction.

    The City’s End: Two Centuries of Fantasies, Fears, and Premonitions of New York’s Destruction

    Prof. Max Page

    “Visions of New York’s destruction resonated with some of the most longstanding themes in American history: the ambivalence toward cities, the troubled reaction to immigrants and racial diversity, the fear of technology’s impact, and the apocalyptic strain in American religious life. Furthermore, these visions of the city’s end have paralleled the city’s economic, political, racial, and physical transformations. Projections of the city’s end reflected and refracted the dominant social issues. Each era in New York’s modern history has produced its own apocalyptic imagery that explores, exploits, and seeks to resolve contemporary cultural tensions and fears.”

    A fascinating visual history of 200 years of NYC’s destruction in fiction.
  7. The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 3: 1939-1944 Anaïs Nin “The ivory tower of the artist may be the only stronghold left for human values, cultural treasures, man’s cult of beauty.”

    The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 3: 1939-1944

    Anaïs Nin

    “The ivory tower of the artist may be the only stronghold left for human values, cultural treasures, man’s cult of beauty.”
  8. Central Park: An Anthology Andrew Blauner “You cannot live without establishing an equilibrium between the inner and outer.” Twenty of New York’s most celebrated writers on the magic of Central Park.

    Central Park: An Anthology

    Andrew Blauner

    “You cannot live without establishing an equilibrium between the inner and outer.”

    Twenty of New York’s most celebrated writers on the magic of Central Park.
  9. Store Front (Mini) - The Disappearing Face of New York James T. Murray Photographer duo James and Karla Murray bring the lens of retrostalgia to New York City’s morphing landscape of mom-and-pop shops. For eight years, the Murrays shot the facades of hundred of stores, more than half of which are now gone. From the retrotastic typographic signage to the beautiful vintage color schemes, these storefronts are priceless time-capsules of an era as faded as their paint coats, haunting ghosts caught in the machine of progress.

    Store Front (Mini) - The Disappearing Face of New York

    James T. Murray

    Photographer duo James and Karla Murray bring the lens of retrostalgia to New York City’s morphing landscape of mom-and-pop shops. For eight years, the Murrays shot the facades of hundred of stores, more than half of which are now gone.

    From the retrotastic typographic signage to the beautiful vintage color schemes, these storefronts are priceless time-capsules of an era as faded as their paint coats, haunting ghosts caught in the machine of progress.
  10. The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011 Hilary Ballon A fascinating catalog of development and destruction, the end of nature and the beginning of urban living, telling the story of New York City’s famed right angles and how they came to be.

    The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011

    Hilary Ballon

    A fascinating catalog of development and destruction, the end of nature and the beginning of urban living, telling the story of New York City’s famed right angles and how they came to be.
  11. New York Diaries: 1609 to 2009 (Modern Library) Teresa Carpenter A remarkable feat of an anthology, culled from the archives of libraries, museums, and private collections to reveal a dimensional mosaic portrait of the city through the journal entries of the writers, artists, thinkers, and tourists, both famous and not, who dwelled in its grid over the past 400 years — easily the most dynamic and important depiction of the city since E. B. White’s timeless Here Is New York. From the voyeuristic glimpses of famous lives (Edison, Kerouac, Twain, Roosevelt, de Beauvoir) to the textured anonymous masses (businessmen, clergymen, Victorian teenagers) that constitute the intricate living fabric of the city, the diary entries are at once engrossingly intimate and strikingly prototypical of the human condition.

    New York Diaries: 1609 to 2009 (Modern Library)

    Teresa Carpenter

    A remarkable feat of an anthology, culled from the archives of libraries, museums, and private collections to reveal a dimensional mosaic portrait of the city through the journal entries of the writers, artists, thinkers, and tourists, both famous and not, who dwelled in its grid over the past 400 years — easily the most dynamic and important depiction of the city since E. B. White’s timeless Here Is New York.

    From the voyeuristic glimpses of famous lives (Edison, Kerouac, Twain, Roosevelt, de Beauvoir) to the textured anonymous masses (businessmen, clergymen, Victorian teenagers) that constitute the intricate living fabric of the city, the diary entries are at once engrossingly intimate and strikingly prototypical of the human condition.
  12. Missed Connections: Love, Lost & Found Sophie Blackall Since 2009, Blackall has been capturing Craigslist missed connections in her delightful illustrations and unmistakable style of Chinese ink and watercolor, brimming with charm, romanticism and soft whimsy. Missed Connections: Love, Lost & Found collects the best of these poetic visual what-if love stories, each told in a shorthand “missed connection” ranging from the lyrical (I Gave You My Umbrella but the Wrong Directions) to the warm-and-fuzzy (We Shared a Bear Suit) to the shared love of the tragicomic (Ice Skating in Central Park We Collided).

    Missed Connections: Love, Lost & Found

    Sophie Blackall

    Since 2009, Blackall has been capturing Craigslist missed connections in her delightful illustrations and unmistakable style of Chinese ink and watercolor, brimming with charm, romanticism and soft whimsy. Missed Connections: Love, Lost & Found collects the best of these poetic visual what-if love stories, each told in a shorthand “missed connection” ranging from the lyrical (I Gave You My Umbrella but the Wrong Directions) to the warm-and-fuzzy (We Shared a Bear Suit) to the shared love of the tragicomic (Ice Skating in Central Park We Collided).