paranoia, ya, l'environnement, sapphic romance, possibly not in that order. can't speak french™ but pretend to flip through the odd french book
masto: eldritch.cafe/@tati
This link opens in a pop-up window
A Brief Welcome to the Universe offers a breathtaking tour of the cosmos, from planets, stars, and galaxies to black …
emmadilemma
boosted
Which countries don’t have rivers? Which ones have North Korean embassies? Who drives on the …
A breezy flip, with maps to answer many of the cocktail party questions you've had (Who drives on the other side of the road? Who calls football soccer?), but that also holds up a mirror to its readers and our received knowledge.
If one can fit the land masses of the U.S., China, and India fully within Africa, why do all Western maps make it look so much smaller? Geography and math combine to arouse social justice. When you're done with that, ponder the shockingly small proportion of the world that the British have never tried to invade.
On the tin it's poor value for money, some 200 pages of maps for $20. But it plants a lot of seeds in the mind.
99% Invisible is a big-ideas podcast about small-seeming things, revealing stories baked into the buildings we inhabit, the streets we …
Silent Cities: San Francisco chronicles the impact of cemeteries on American cities through the gold-rush …
i have a couple of friends who will like this
First published in 1999, this celebrated history of San Francisco traces the exploitation of both …
Another of those books inspired by Election Day.
emmadilemma
boosted
Faced with intolerable congestion and noxious pollution, cities around the world are rethinking their reliance …
This has been on my shelf; given the SF election results, it's high time I pulled it down.
Faced with intolerable congestion and noxious pollution, cities around the world are rethinking their reliance …
This has been on my shelf; given the SF election results, it's high time I pulled it down.
emmadilemma
boosted
Working from home, undertourism, online shopping: the disruptive upheavals caused by the COVID-19 pandemic challenge …
Post-Pandemic Urbanism, a German collection of essays that I read in translation, looks at the changes that the pandemic created and sees a world where some impossible things have become possible, but where other intractable things have only become more so. I rate this a 3-star only because I come in with somewhat different politics and found the tone off-putting at times.
At times like the beginning, really, where the first essayist basically says everything went to hell when we stopped living in earthen huts. But I stuck with it, and while there were entire essays that I skimmed through, there were others that fascinated me, particularly around transportation infrastructure.
On bad days I have a bad attitude toward bikes, which in my area tend to block crosswalks and treat wheelchair ramps as a quick way to get on the sidewalk. But I have nothing but support for the cycling …
Post-Pandemic Urbanism, a German collection of essays that I read in translation, looks at the changes that the pandemic created and sees a world where some impossible things have become possible, but where other intractable things have only become more so. I rate this a 3-star only because I come in with somewhat different politics and found the tone off-putting at times.
At times like the beginning, really, where the first essayist basically says everything went to hell when we stopped living in earthen huts. But I stuck with it, and while there were entire essays that I skimmed through, there were others that fascinated me, particularly around transportation infrastructure.
On bad days I have a bad attitude toward bikes, which in my area tend to block crosswalks and treat wheelchair ramps as a quick way to get on the sidewalk. But I have nothing but support for the cycling lanes that sprung up while the streets were empty. The worst biker vs. the smallest, most fuel-efficient car is no contest. This book did help to remind me of that.
Less happy is the undeniable fact that inequality has gotten much worse. Anyone who lives in a city sees that every day. And there is of course no pat answer.
For anybody who's in the Fediverse reading this review, if the subject intrigues you, definitely seek this book out. The authors' politics align quite well with most people I know here. I was just a little off to the side.
When graduate student Jenny Worley needed a fast way to earn more money, she found herself at the door of …
99% Invisible is a big-ideas podcast about small-seeming things, revealing stories baked into the buildings we inhabit, the streets we …
China’s new drive for repression is being underpinned by unprecedented advances in technology: facial and …
Engaging, if true: A fascinating and outraged view into surveillance China. I didn't get far enough into it to feel justified rating it; there was just too little documentation for me to feel confident I was reading facts that I could justifiably scare my friends with.
The author's experience holding low-wage jobs in three parts of the U.S. in the late 1990s.
In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the coming-of-age story of her life in …
NPR recently recommended this for those curious about the terrible situation in Iran - both specifically today's headlines and generally - and I concur. It's a breezy but not quite easy read, a YA-targeted graphic novelization of an Iranian teen struggling to grow up in modern times, to the point of getting her father to smuggle home some American pop culture.
In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the coming-of-age story of her life in Tehran from ages six to …
A scientific biography of Jennifer Doudna, a founder and co-developer of the CRISPR gene-editing mechanism, and an examination of what …
