This hit all my architecture and history geek needs. Chock full of facts, stories, and other interesting tidbits about our cities, towns, lands, etc. There is apparently a podcast which I've been missing and must now subscribe to. My only nitpick: I wish there were photos of the subjects rather than artwork/drawings; but I also understand it can be an artistic choice. I just found myself searching for photos of the actual object/item(s) being discussed so I could have a better mental image.

Otherwise, if you at all love history and/or architecture, this is a great book to own. ( )

This is a really fun book on design and the built environment. It's organized as a staccato series of short interesting pieces, grouped by topic. You can pick it up and read for a few minutes, or for a few hours. Lots of useful trivia for your next walk around town with curious people. ( )

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. 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. ( )

Perfect accompaniment to the podcast. Lots of detail, lots of different little things they describe. ( )

A great book to dip into. Almost every short article full of information or surprises or usually both. ( )