Roman Mars

I've been a longtime listener of the 99% Invisible podcast, which explores odd and sometimes surprising stories about the human-built world around us and how it got that way. So, of course, I had to pick up this book, and I'm pleased to report that it did not disappoint! It's full of bite-sized tidbits about all kinds of weird, quirky, important, and overlooked stuff to be found in and around cities and roads. False building facades concealing ventilation shafts, skyscrapers with extra-high show more towers at the top just so they could claim to be the world's tallest building for a brief moment, coded signs in Hollywood that point to movie shooting locations, brick thieves in St. Louis, spikes on sidewalks to keep homeless people away, parking spaces repurposed into mini-parks... And on and on and on.

The whole thing is engaging and fun to read, whether you want to dip in and out or read it straight through, and whether you actually live in a city or not. And the book itself is a nice, solid, rather attractive physical object. With the holiday season coming up, it occurs to me that it might make a really nice gift for the sort of person who likes non-fiction books that make you want to go around saying, "Hey, did you know...?" to people.

Admittedly, a fair amount of it was already familiar to me from the podcast -- more than I was expecting, to be honest -- but I found I didn't particularly mind. It's still interesting the second time, and they're never just transcribing stories verbatim from the podcast. Plus, there's plenty that was new to me, too.

My only dissatisfaction with it is that I really wish it had photographs. There are lots of black-and-white line drawings, which have a certain charm, and which do help to illustrate some of the things that need illustrating, but it was occasionally frustrating not to be able to just see real examples of the things the book was describing. show less

I originally started by describing The 99% Invisible City in the context of the 99% Invisible podcast. But if you already know the podcast you already know if you want this book. For everyone else Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt provide a field guide to all of the interesting bits you probably never notice, or at least don't think on much, about cites, how they work and how they got that way. It's not just a rehashing of the podcast (although fans will recognize some of the stories). Nor is it show more stuff you're just going to find on google or wikipedia because, well, you can find that on google and wikipedia. (Although I'm sure people are busily adding all the interesting bits from the book to wikipedia already). You can find out about stop signs, but not "why are they red?" because that is kind of boring, but how did they come to be standardized and why someone once thought that we would be able to derive instant meaning from the number of sides on a sign. Or about that one traffic light that has green at the top, and the park next to it to commemorate how it got that way.

The book is organized into 6 chapters, and each of those into 3-6 sub-chapters that contain a handful of vignettes each. There is absolutely no need to read them in order. This is the perfect book for
* someone who enjoys not just random facts, but the human stories that go with those facts
* someone who is interested in opening their eyes to all the little things all around us in the city
* someone who likes to puzzle out how any why things are the way they are, and loves the surprise of finding out that an everyday thing is an elegant and subtle way to solve a problem
* anyone who always reads the plaque.

And as you might expect from a book by a couple of design nerds, the book itself is an exercise in meticulous design.It looks and feels like one of those Intro to Blah college textbooks, except one you'll want to read. The illustrations are generally photographs that have been re-rendered as drawings to highlight the important, relevant, or interesting bits. show less

This is a book that celebrates nerdiness - inherently, in its entire premise, literally, in it's dedication, and in spirit throughout the entire book. The authors are themselves nerds for their subject. Their enthusiasm and the joy they get from learning and sharing comes through in every essay, which in turn makes each essay a joy to read.

While I did find some essays more interesting than others - something that I suspect will be true for anyone who reads this book - every essay in the show more book was interesting to at least some degree.

I would call this book interesting, but not engrossing. The way that the book is organized both allows for and encourages skipping around from topic to topic by interest, which, given the focus on design throughout the book, is certainly no accident. This book would make a useful reference volume to have on the shelf, as well, and its size and design also reflect that.

The prose style was concise, casual, often humorous, and easy to follow. The format and structure of the book made it easy to read during small chunks of time, one essay at a time. Engineering and architectural terms were used throughout but always defined right after, and the same was true for any other technical terminology.

All in all, The 99% Invisible City is a fun and interesting reference book and a great place to start if you want to do more reading on urbanism, city engineering and design, or architecture, and I would recommend it not only to anyone interested in any of these topics, but also to anyone who is at least not not-interested in them. I think you'll be surprised how interesting a lot of it turns out to be. show less

So I listened to the audiobook via audible and loved this. So many interesting tidbits (though I think maybe I’d liked it more if they did deeper dives into the subjects). I’d recognized one of the blank facades in NYC several years and had no idea what it was for. It was interesting to hear about preventing skateboarding (maybe it is a crime?) and the other efforts to green scape cities (and ask for forgiveness) and means to reduce automobile traffic in city centers.
I liked at the end show more of the audiobook how they discussed how different it was to compile a book as opposed to compiling a podcast. Wonder if they found doing an audiobook yet again something different?
Didn’t know before this that there was a podcast; am now subscribed. Where to begin with 450 episodes? show less