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

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

I have never listened to the podcast. This is basically a collection of very loosely organised trivia. It's mostly pretty cool trivia! But I guess I was expecting more substance and discussion. The illustrations are also kind of a weird choice - lots of stuff really needs photos but they've got loads of good drawings which are impressive but a sort of inadequate substitute especially when they miss details. I'm mostly looking up stuff on my phone to see photos of what they talk about. show more Enjoying the trivia but don't really see this being more than a 3 star book. A lot of it feels like reading Wikipedia except less in depth and without helpful photos - the book is helpful in pointing you to things but I ended up looking stuff up even past the photos constantly because the book missed out stuff even on the basic level.

Also I always wonder to what extent I can trust the factual side when there's so many random facts from different areas being presented and when big issues get reduced to very short brief bits that don't even hint at the complicatedness behind them. Maybe that's kind of unfair - I guess it's just almost everything is at a shallow level like I say so it's not much more than trivia.

Overall it's fine and there's lots of interesting stuff mentioned but as a "field guide" it falls way short and I'm not sure whether the book has much advantage over Wikipedia. show less

99% Invisible is one of my absolute favorite podcasts series. It focuses on "the unnoticed architecture and design that shape our world," which sounds like a highly specific thing but actually leads to a wide diversity of fascinating topics. This book is a hand "field guide" to the little secrets of design you find in cities around the world. It includes many of the stories previously covered in podcast episodes as well as a lot of new material. You can read it straight through like I did, show more hop around the book at your leisure, or even just refer to it as a reference book.

Oddly fascinating topics you can learn about include:

• decoding the spray paint markings on pavement made by utility companies


• electrical substations disguised as ordinary houses


• seemingly useless architecture that is nevertheless maintained, known as "Thomassons"


• municipal flag design


• the Olympic history of those inflatable figures that dance outside of car washes


• the mysteries of rotaries/traffic circles


• boxes on the exterior of many buildings with emergency information for first responders


• an island named for Busta Rhymes


• synanthropes, or the animals who live among us (squirrels, fish, pigeons, racoons, etc.)


• hostile design the specifically targets "undesirable" people


• the story of a Buddha statue placed in an intersection to prevent littering that became a local shrine

All of this and more in this fascinating volume! show less