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nix

nixnull@bookwyrm.social

Joined 2 years, 4 months ago

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nix's books

Currently Reading

Mark Z. Danielewski: House of Leaves (Paperback, 2006, Pantheon)

A young family moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover …

In All the Best Ways, a Challenging Book

This is a book that challenges the reader and pushes the boundaries of what a book can be. I'll be thinking about it for a long time.

Ursula K. Le Guin: The  Dispossessed (Hardcover, 1991, Harper Paperbacks)

Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, …

A Realistic Anarchist Utopia

I highly recommend this book to anarchists or libertarian leftists in general. It beautifully builds and explores a functioning anarchist society, and some of the dysfunction that could exist in such a society. It also has some great classic SciFi world building.

If bookwyrm allowed it I'd give a 4.5. The only flaw is a somewhat rushed feeling ending. Doesn't take away from the rest of the book tho.

Cory Doctorow: Radicalized (EBook, 2019, Head of Zeus)

Told through one of the most on-pulse genre voices of our generation--New York Times bestselling …

Four Timely and Thought Provoking Stories

Each of these stories is a not-so-subtle reference to real political issues and undercurrents right now, which I think is important to note. You won't find escapism here. But you will find a lot of food for thought in a digestible format, and that's what I really appreciated.

Jeff Speck: Walkable city (2012, Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

If You're Going to Read 1 Urbanist Book, Do This One

No rating

I'm actually updating my rating, which was a 4/5 originally. I still think about and reference this book regularly, so I think it deserves that 5.

The tenth anniversary of this book is a must. The original is good, but it lacks any analysis of race. The tenth anniversary filled in a lot of these gaps, as well as reckoning with societal and tech changes since original publication.

To date this is the single most informative and comprehensive urbanist book I know, while still being very easy to read. It's not perfect, but it's the best place to start.

Robert D. Putnam: Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2020)

Twenty years, ago, Robert D. Putnam made a seemingly simple observation: once we bowled in …

Read for urbanist book club. I did not fully finish this. It's a classic work for a reason. But it suffers from the fact that better written, more interesting, and up to date works have built on the topic. This book did everything right in its era, but it's just aged.