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The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design by [Roman Mars, Kurt Kohlstedt, 99% Invisible]

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Roman Mars

Kurt Kohlstedt

The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design Kindle Edition

by Roman Mars (Author), Kurt Kohlstedt (Author), 99% Invisible (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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A New York Times Bestseller

'[A] diverse and enlightening book . . . The 99% Invisible City is altogether fresh and imaginative when it comes to thinking about urban spaces.' -The New York Times Book Review

'A delightful book about the under-appreciated wonders of good design' - Tim Harford, bestselling author of The Undercover Economist and Fifty Things that Made the Modern Economy
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This is 99% Invisible.
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A beautifully designed guidebook to the unnoticed yet essential elements of our cities, from the creators of the wildly popular 99% Invisible podcast

Have you ever wondered what those bright, squiggly graffiti marks on the sidewalk mean?

Or stopped to ponder who gets to name the streets we walk along?

Or what the story is behind those dancing inflatable figures in car dealerships?

99% Invisible is a big-ideas podcast about small-seeming things, revealing stories baked into the buildings we inhabit, the streets we drive, and the sidewalks we traverse. The show celebrates design and architecture in all of its functional glory and accidental absurdity, with intriguing tales of both designers and the people impacted by their designs.

Now, in The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to Hidden World of Everyday Design, host Roman Mars and coauthor Kurt Kohlstedt zoom in on the various elements that make our cities work, exploring the origins and other fascinating stories behind everything from power grids and fire escapes to drinking fountains and street signs. With deeply researched entries and beautiful line drawings throughout, The 99% Invisible City will captivate devoted fans of the show and anyone curious about design, urban environments, and the unsung marvels of the world around them.
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You are about to see stories everywhere, you beautiful nerd. Now get out there.

'If you've ever wondered why our world is the way it is, this show has your answers' The Hustle

'99% Invisible...is completely wonderful and entertaining and beautifully produced...' Ira Glass, This American Life

'The hugely inventive 99% Invisible treats the design of everyday things like a forensic science.' WIRED

Word Wise: Enabled	Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled	Page Flip: Enabled
Language: English

Due to its large file size, this book may take longer to download

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Review

The ideal companion for city buffs, who'll come away seeing the streets in an entirely different light. - Kirkus

Here is a field guide, a boon, a bible, for the urban curious. Your city's secret anatomy laid bare -- a hundred things you look at but don't see, see but don't know. Each entry is a compact, surprising story, a thought piece, an invitation to marvel. Together, they are almost transformative. To know why things are as they are adds a satisfying richness to daily existence. This book is terrific, just terrific. - Mary Roach, author of Stiff and Grunt

We usually define cities in terms of their bigness, so it's easy to forget that our daily experience of any city is made up of countless tiny, intimate encounters. Just as Jane Jacobs did fifty years ago, Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt provide a new way of seeing urban life, finding secrets and surprises behind every sewer grate, storefront, and street sign. - Michael Beirut, design critic and author of How to Use Graphic Design to Sell Things, Explain Things, Make Things Look Better, Make People Laugh, Make People Cry, and (Every Once in a While) Change the World

Conversational, bite-size entries [and] beautiful tricolor illustrations . . . A field guide for anywhere. - Booklist

The 99% Invisible City brings into view the fascinating but often unnoticed worlds we walk and drive through every day, and to read it is to feel newly alive and aware of your place in the world. This book made me laugh, and it made me cry, and it reminded me to always read the plaque.' - John Green, bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All The Way Down

'The Invisible City is not a book, but a pair of magic glasses that transform the mundane city around you into a vibrant museum of human ingenuity.' - Justin McElroy, podcaster and New York Times bestselling author of The Adventure Zone --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Book Description

An alternative guide to the hidden everyday objects in a city, from the hugely successful podcast 99% Invisible --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

File Size : 40068 KB
Word Wise : Enabled
Print Length : 400 pages
Publisher : Hodder & Stoughton; 01 Edition (6 October 2020)
ASIN : B084D9ZCP6
Language: : English
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Enhanced Typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: 25,261 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
271 ratings

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Robby Green

There are NO pictures, just some vague illustrations.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 October 2020

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Good book, the content is interesting and informative. The illustrations are just ok. I feel as if I really want to see the things being described, the way I do when I listen to the podcast and the illustrations are just vague sketches with no real detail. I believe the book has missed the opportunity to give listeners what they would ultimately like, a photograph of what is being described. I would have loved to have a book with less words and more pictures, diagrams and arrows with captions.

3 people found this helpful

Rhys

Terrible Ebook, OK Book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 October 2020

Verified Purchase

As a 99pi listener, many of the topics have been covered before, so this was a little bit repetative, however unlike the podcast where the tiniest of details are laboured over, the book rushed over things quickly, leaving you wanting more. Most "items" are a page long, leaving you with more questions than anything. There are more informative sections which are longer, and are by far the best parts of the book, but there aren't enough of them.
In addition, the "images" in the book are more like hand drawn illistrations that don't really help with information or added effect. They could have been left out.

Over all, its an OK book, and worth a read, but if you're really interested in this stuff, listen to the podcast instead.

Finally, I first purchased the ebook, which was formatted in a TERRIBLE way. It was simply unreadable thanks to forced fonts, a light grey background on everything and then slightly darker, but still pretty light grey font color. I then went out to buy the actual book. If you intend to get this; don't get the ebook.

Retro Scendence

Kindle version difficult to read, or maybe user error?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 October 2020

Verified Purchase

The text in the Kindle version is light grey making it hard to read. I have checked the settings on my device and compared to other books and it only seems to be an issue with this book. You can see the 'book progress' text in the picture is the normal blackness in contrast to the lighter body text.

I will be happy to amend or remove this review if it's a case of user error.

I'm a big fan of the podcast and I'm sure the book will be fantastic once I am able to read it.

Nathan

An amazing book - well worth the wait!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 October 2020

Verified Purchase

I've only had this book for a day or so and it's already my new favourite thing. I pre-ordered the book as soon as I heard about it a few months ago on the podcast and I was so happy when it finally got delivered. Its packed full of interesting stories which are all easily digestible and easy to read. If you're familiar with the podcast, some of the stories will be a blast from the past from one of the previous episodes (just in more detail with a nice illustration to accompany) but even if you've never heard the show, but are interested in the world around you and how things work, it's the book for you. Genuine thank you to Roman and Kurt for bringing this into my life.

Raccoon Fan

A gentle and curious guide to human designed spaces.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 October 2020

Verified Purchase

I find this book a beautiful piece of design in itself. It explores various parts of city design and may help give you some different perspective and a deeper understanding of places you live in or visit. I find it enjoyable to dip into or sit and read, largely because the enthusiasm the authors have for the subject shines in the way they have approached putting together this book. It is not a technical manual on city design but it explores how humans live and work in these places in our day to day lives, giving some context to the unusual and the mundane but beautiful things you might encounter in designed spaces.

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