Michael Sorkin’s Book List
This is not a list of the 25 “best” books I can think of—but rather a list of 25 books that opened doors for me. Most were first read a long time ago. The list will be different tomorrow.
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Given to me by my mother when it was first published, this is the book that gave me my first real clues about urban history and the relationship of form and social life. It also made me a modernist.
A first serious critical armature for sorting out the meaning of taste.
As succinct and singular an explanation of urban causality as there is.
The man was a remarkable straight talker. No better summary of the commodification of space.
The first of Freud’s books I read and therefore the portal to vast worlds.
The young boy’s handbook of functionalist aesthetics and representation.
In which it is made clear that our relationship to cities is not just functional but imaginative.
Never has a cultural condition been caught so deadpan dead to rights.
Well, Shakespeare was the greatest writer ever. In a saturnine mood today, so I pick my favorite comedy.
A book that took away much adolescent fuzziness in thinking about the idea of the good.
Another anthem. Captures the double dream of imaginative and spatial freedom.
The book through which I learned how to read closely and had my utopian streak nicely jazzed.
The book that brought the swastika to the living room of every Jewish family in America also launched my fascination with the ur-porno of those incomprehensible events.
From which I learned much about both the universality and particularity of literature. (Includes one of the greatest weepy scenes in literature.)
Confirmed my modernist bent, offered the first picture seen of Michel de Klerk’s post office, and—via its shimmery prose—made the idea of writing about architecture plausible.
The most sustained act of literary invention of all time, one of those works after which things are simply not the same.
A really funny, brilliant book that makes fiction continuingly relevant and possible.
Announcements
Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister
Now is Better
By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023
Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
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Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Milton Glaser: POP
By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023
This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.
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Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)
By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023
This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.
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