Douglass Shand-Tucci

My first, and so far only, trip to Boston was about five years ago. Although I made it to Harvard's campus, I didn't have the time to visit MIT, which is home to a number of notable modern and contemporary buildings, such as Aalto's dormitory, Saarinen's chapel, and another dormitory, by Steven Holl. As much as I like to visit a place with an architectural guide, I'm not sure this one would have made the ideal companion at MIT, even if it were around at the time. At 400 pages, it is a hefty show more guide, split into two halves: eight "portals" that paints a historical portrait of MIT, and eight "walks" that highlight different areas of MIT's campus on the left bank of the Charles. The second half – the true guide – is as verbose as the first half, with one walk consisting of basically standing in one point on a bridge and getting an overview of campus. The merits of the book include some beautiful photographs and a map, the latter of which visitors can carry around in lieu of the heavy book that is better suited to reading before taking a trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts. show less

I gave up at about page 29. Thoroughly researched, but poorly organized and ponderously written. I might come back to this book to gain additional insight after I've read other biographies of this fascinating woman, but a poor choice for taking a first look at her life.

I so wanted to love this book, as the museum is one of my favorite places, but was bored to tears reading it. Shand-Tucci obviously had done his research thoroughly, but spent so much time evaluating the relations of her friends, and their work, that I was lost in daydream. Too bad, seemed that her life should have provided a more interesting story to tell.

There is a lot of interesting information in here about homosexual and homosocial relationships in and around Harvard in the 19th and 20th centuries, but infelicitous prose and a weird thesis bogged me down. So I quit.