Book review: Cities Are Good For You

Book review: ‘Cities Are Good For You’ - Books - The Boston Globe: "“It is places like the High Line that allow us to think again about the city and how it can make us happy,” writes Hollis, adding that “the metropolis is perhaps our greatest achievement.” Guiding a general audience from Manhattan to Mumbai and Marseilles, among other places, Hollis does not precisely list why urban life benefits us as much as explore various social and creative possibilities it offers; thus he also emphasizes that in planning cities “it is the people that matter, the way that they are allowed to interact, intermingle, and connect.” As such, we should address “sustainability, trust, and inequality” in urban life, he says, whether tackling housing, traffic, or climate change."

Book Covers: Before and After - Slide Show - NYTimes.com: "Four designers discuss their work on recent book covers: first concepts that didn’t make the final cut, and then the cover as published. Peter Mendelsund on the design for Julio Cortázar’s “Hopscotch” (Pantheon): “I always knew that I’d be unsatisfied with whatever cover I might design for Julio Cortázar’s jazzy, melancholic, metafictional masterpiece ‘Hopscotch’ (which turns 50 this year). The texts you care about the most are the hardest to design covers for — and I’ve loved ‘Hopscotch’ since I was a teenager. . . ."

Publishers object to proposed Apple e-book remedies - latimes.com: ""The provisions do not impose any limitation on Apple's pricing behavior at all; rather, under the guise of punishing Apple, they effectively punish the settling defendants by prohibiting agreements with Apple using an agency model," the publishers' motion stated."

The Art of Worldly Wisdom: The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle is a book of three hundred aphorisms for making one’s way in the world and achieving distinction.

more book news below

Follow @jmichaelpoole