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.
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nix finished reading House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
A young family moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their …
nix reviewed House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
nix finished reading The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down …
nix reviewed The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
A Realistic Anarchist Utopia
5 stars
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.
nix started reading The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down …
nix reviewed Radicalized by Cory Doctorow
Four Timely and Thought Provoking Stories
4 stars
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.
nix reviewed Walkable city by Jeff Speck
If You're Going to Read 1 Urbanist Book, Do This One
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.
nix rated Racist Roots: 3 stars

Bowling Alone: Revised and Updated: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam
Twenty years, ago, Robert D. Putnam made a seemingly simple observation: once we bowled in leagues, usually after work; but …
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.
nix finished reading Racist Roots by Christine Carmichael
Read last year for Urbanist book club. Book has some good and interesting points about the complexity of fixing the urban canopy in disinvested/redlines neighborhoods. There's a strange current throughout where the author, a white woman, talks about the importance of listening to minority communities while almost entirely focusing only on her own perspective.
nix started reading Cars and Jails by Andrew Ross
Just started reading this for the July #STLUrbanists book club. Really excited for this analysis, because I think it addresses an interesting contradiction in car culture - how cars have been simultaneously liberating to minorities and yet another vector for policing and indebting people.
nix started reading Radicalized by Cory Doctorow

Radicalized by Cory Doctorow
Told through one of the most on-pulse genre voices of our generation--New York Times bestselling author Cory Doctorow--Radicalized is a …
nix replied to slowly reading moss&'s status
@maxi@wyrms.de I just finished another book by her (To Be Taught, If Fortunate), and was disappointed. But I love Monk & Robot. So looking forward to seeing how this one turns out for you.